The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a multi-disciplinary research project following the lives of around 19,000 children born in the UK in 2000-01. It is the most recent of Britain’s world renowned national longitudinal birth cohort studies. The study has been tracking the Millennium children through their early childhood years and plans to follow them into adulthood. It collects information on the children’s siblings and parents. MCS’s field of inquiry covers such diverse topics as parenting; childcare; school choice; child behaviour and cognitive development; child and parental health; parent’s employment and education; income and poverty; housing, neighbourhood and residential mobility; and social capital and ethnicity.

The study is core funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and a consortium of Government departments.