External Publications Using GUI Data
Authors | Year | Title ↑ | Link | Journal/Book | Abstract |
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Brennan, M., Cavallaro, M., Mongan, D., Doyle, A., Millar, S., Zgaga, L., Smyth, B., Nixon, E., Ivors, J., Galvin, B., Walsh, C., McCrory, C., McCarthy, N. | 2025 | Factors Associated With Cocaine Use at 17 and 20 Years Old: A Longitudinal Analysis of a Nationally Representative Cohort | Open | Journal of Adolescent Health | |
Purpose Methods Results Discussion | |||||
Watson, D., Whelan, C.T., Maître, B., Williams, J. | 2015 | Family Economic Vulnerability and the Great Recession: an Analysis of the First Two Waves of the Growing Up in Ireland Study | Open | Longitudinal and Life Course Studies | |
In this paper we make use of the first and second waves of the 2008 and 1998 cohorts of the Growing Up in Ireland study, to develop a multidimensional and dynamic approach to understanding the impact on families and children in Ireland of the Great Recession. Economic vulnerability is operationalised as involving a distinctive risk profile in relation to relative income, household joblessness and economic stress. We find that the recession was associated with a significant increase in levels of economic vulnerability and changing risk profiles involving a more prominent role for economic stress for both the 2008 and 1998 cohorts. The factors affecting vulnerability outcomes were broadly similar for both cohorts. Persistent economic vulnerability was significantly associated with lone parenthood, particularly for those with more than one child, lower levels of primary care giver (PCG) education and, to a lesser extent, younger age of PCG at child’s birth, number of children and a parent leaving or dying. Similar factors were associated with transient vulnerability in the first wave but the magnitude of the effects was significantly weaker particularly in relation to lone parenthood and level of education of the PCG. For entry into vulnerability the impact of these factors was again substantially weaker than for persistent and transient vulnerability indicating a significantly greater degree of socioeconomic heterogeneity among the group that became vulnerable during the recession. The findings raise policy and political problems that go beyond those associated with catering for groups that have tended to be characterized by high dependence on social welfare. | |||||
Fahey, T., Keilthy, P., Polek, E. | 2012 | Family Relationships and Family Well-Being: A Study of the Families of Nine Year-Olds in Ireland | Open | UCD / Family Support Agency | |
This study is based on the first wave of data on the child cohort (nine year-olds) in the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey. It examines family relationships and their associations with parent and child well-being in the families of the nine year-olds and explores social inequalities in these aspects of family circumstances. The analysis is presented under five headings: the structure of families (a term which encompasses family structure both currently and over time and also includes family size), relationship quality between parents, the individual well-being of parents, relationship quality between parents and children, and the well-being of children. | |||||
McDonnell, C., Gracia, P. | 2024 | Family structure and women’s mental well-being: how family stressors explain mental health inequalities between lone and partnered mothers | Open | Frontiers in Sociology | |
Lone mothers have been found to report lower average mental health than partnered mothers. Following the ‘stress process model’, disparities in women’s mental health by family structure could be explained by lone mothers’ higher exposure to multiple forms of stressors, compared to partnered mothers. Yet, this hypothesis has not been tested in previous studies. This study analysed four waves of longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Ireland study, spanning between the year when women gave birth (2008) to 9 years later (2017) (N = 5,654 women), to examine how family stressors (i.e., financial strain, caregiving strain, work-related strain, and parental conflict) influence mothers’ depressive symptoms by family structure. Analyses applied random-effects models and Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) decomposition techniques, combined with different model specifications as robustness checks (i.e., fixed-effects). Results indicate that: (1) net of sociodemographic factors, lone mothers experience higher levels of depressive symptoms than partnered mothers, with additional analyses confirming that transitioning from partnered to lone mother is associated with higher depressive symptoms, and from lone to partnered mother with reduced depressive symptoms; (2) although 41% of the observed statistical association between family structure and mothers’ depressive symptoms is direct, a larger 59% of this mental health gap is mediated by inequalities between lone and partnered mothers in their exposure to family stressors; and (3) the largest share of the observed mediation by family stressors is explained by lone mothers’ higher risks of current and past caregiving strain and parental conflict, but also by their current higher financial strain. Overall, this study suggests that lone mothers’ lower mental health, compared to partnered mothers, is largely explained by disparities in exposure to family stressors, pointing to how accumulated caregiving and parental stressors, as well as poverty risks, are key explanatory factors behind the mental well-being disadvantage that lone mothers face. | |||||
Thornton, M. | 2012 | Family structure in Ireland and child emotional and behavioral outcomes. | Open | Child and Adolescent Mental Health | |
Dooley, N., Kennelly, B., Arseneault, L., Zammit, S., Whelan, R., Mosley, O., Cotter, D., Clarke, M., Cotter, D.R., Kelleher, I., McGorry, P., Healy, C., Cannon, M. | 2023 | Functional Outcomes Among Young People With Trajectories of Persistent Childhood Psychopathology | Open | JAMA network | |
Importance Understanding which children in the general population are at greatest risk of poor functional outcomes could improve early screening and intervention strategies. Objective To investigate the odds of poor outcomes in emerging adulthood (ages 17 to 20 years) for children with different mental health trajectories at ages 9 to 13 years. Design, Setting, and Participants Growing Up in Ireland is a longitudinal, nationally representative population-based cohort study. Data collection began in August 2007 and was repeated most recently in September 2018. All results were weighted to account for sampling bias and attrition and were adjusted for socioeconomic factors. Data analysis took place from October 2022 to April 2023. Exposure Four latent classes captured variation in mental health in children aged 9 and 13 years, based on the parent-completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Classes included no psychopathology, internalizing, externalizing, and high (comorbid) psychopathology. Those who remained in the same class from ages 9 to 13 years were included. Main Outcomes and Measures Poor functional outcomes in emerging adulthood were measured at approximate ages 17 years (range, 16 to 18 years) and 20 years (range, 19 to 21 years). Outcomes included poor mental health, poor physical health, social isolation, heavy substance use, frequent health service use, poor subjective well-being, and adverse educational/economic outcomes. Results Of 5141 included participants, 2618 (50.9%) were male. A total of 3726 (72.5%) were classed as having no childhood psychopathology, 1025 (19.9%) as having persistent externalizing psychopathology, 243 (4.7%) as having persistent internalizing psychopathology, and 147 (2.9%) as having persistent high psychopathology. Having any childhood psychopathology was associated with poorer functional outcomes in emerging adulthood. The internalizing group had elevated odds of most outcomes except for heavy substance use (range of odds ratios [ORs]: 1.38 [95% CI, 1.05-1.81] for frequent health service use to 3.08 [95% CI, 2.33-4.08] for poor mental health). The externalizing group had significantly elevated odds of all outcomes, albeit with relatively small effect sizes (range of ORs: 1.38 [95% CI, 1.19-1.60] for frequent health service use to 1.98 [95% CI, 1.67-2.35] for adverse educational/economic outcomes). The high psychopathology group had elevated odds of all outcomes (nonsignificantly for frequent health service use), though with wide confidence intervals (range of ORs: 1.53 [95% CI, 1.06-2.21] for poor physical health to 2.91 [95% CI, 2.05-4.12] for poor mental health). Female participants with any psychopathology had significantly higher odds of poor physical health and frequent health service use compared with male participants with any psychopathology. Conclusions and Relevance In this longitudinal cohort study, childhood psychopathology was associated with a widespread pattern of functional impairment in emerging adulthood. Findings point to the need for a wider range of preventive interventions in child and adolescent mental health services. | |||||
O'Reilly, C., Quayle, M. | 2021 | Gender inequalities in time spent doing housework by children in Ireland: A nationally representative sample across two time points | Open | Infant and Child Development | |
Gender inequality in housework divisions is persistent. This study examined early-emerging patterns in gender roles via children’s gendered housework time in the Irish context using time-use diary and questionnaire data, controlling for key demographic variables. This study utilized longitudinal “Growing up in Ireland” data, comparing the same children’s behaviour at age 9 and 13. Participants were a nationally representative, weighted sample of school going children living in Ireland, including 4,135 girls, 3,831 boys and their caregivers. The results highlight that inequalities in domestic chores occur at nine and are even greater at 13: girls do more housework and children tend to do “gender typical” chores. Consequences are discussed in relation to gender inequality and policy implications. | |||||
McCoy, S., Byrne, D., O’Connor, P. | 2022 | Gender stereotyping in mothers’ and teachers’ perceptions of boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance in Ireland | Open | Oxford Review of Education | |
Parents’ and teachers’ beliefs and evaluations of young people are important. Using a feminist institutionalist perspective, and drawing on rich data from one in seven nine-year-old children in Ireland, this paper examines mothers’ (who make up the overwhelming majority of primary care-givers) and teachers’ perceptions of boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance. The evidence shows that girls’ mathematics performance is underestimated by both relative to boys’. Mother’s gender bias was evident among high performing children, at all levels of children’s academic self-concept, and among mothers with at least third level education. While the judgements reflect children’s actual performance and engagement, a notable gender gap remains. It is suggested that the results reflect gender stereotypes: overestimating boys’ and underestimating girls’ mathematics achievements. The article indicates the importance of the informal dimension of institutions and the part played by women in the effective devaluation of girls by endorsing gendered stereotypes. Women teachers are less likely to rate children highly in mathematics, taking account of performance: arguably reflecting their own lack of confidence in mathematics assessment. The findings raise concerns for girls’ futures since mathematics is seen as an indicator of intelligence. Given the move towards teacher-assessed grading during COVID-19, understanding, and challenging, gender-stereotyping is pressing. | |||||
Reinhard, E., Layte, R., McCrory, C., Panico, L., Avendano, M. | 2018 | Great Recession and the Health of Young Children: A Fixed Effects Analysis in Ireland | Open | American Journal of Epidemiology | |
Economic recessions have been linked to adult health, but few studies have examined how recessions influence the health of young children. This study examined the impact of life transitions linked to the recent financial crisis on the health of young children in Ireland. Data came from the Growing Up in Ireland Infant Cohort Study (n = 11,134), which assessed children before (2008), during (2011), and after (2013) the Great Recession that followed the financial crisis of 2008 and incorporated questions on the impacts of the financial crisis on families. Using fixed-effects models to control for confounding, we found that a reduction in welfare benefits during the recession was associated with a significant increase in the risks of asthma (β = 0.014, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.004, 0.023) and atopy (β = 0.014, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.027). While parental job loss was not associated with child health, a reduction in working hours was associated with increased reports of child health problems (β = 0.024, 95% CI: 0.004, 0.043), as were difficulties affording basic necessities (β = 0.019, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.038). Results suggest that failing to protect vulnerable families and children during economic recessions may have long-lasting implications for child health. | |||||
Doran, P., Bradshaw, P., Morton, S., El-Shadan, T., Williams, J., Cunningham, C. | 2020 | Growing up Healthy in Families Across the Globe: Cross-Cultural Harmonisation of Childhood Risk-Factors Using Longitudinal Studies from Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand | Open | Child Indicators Research | |
The Growing Up Healthy in Families Across the Globe project is an international collaboration examining the potential for harmonised analysis using five longitudinal studies (from New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland). All five studies follow the lives of children, are interested in the dynamics of family change and work to inform policy to potentially improve population well-being across the life-course. Comparative analysis from harmonised longitudinal studies, where change over time is emphasised, provides a unique view to determine how and why environments change, which environments are supportive and which are not. This paper discusses the challenges and tasks involved when preparing and conducting harmonised analysis, and initial findings from the Growing Up Healthy project are discussed. The studies were, from New Zealand, Te Hoe Nuku Roa, the Pacific Island Families Study and Growing Up in New Zealand, and from Scotland and Ireland Growing Up in Scotland and Growing Up in Ireland. Post hoc data harmonisation of measures resulted in the identification of several closely aligned variables. The harmonised descriptive variables from the five studies highlight many similarities across the studies. A risk factor model to predict child development outcomes (using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) was developed and resulted in very similar patterns of risk in New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland. Risks included: maternal relationship status, maternal education, smoking in pregnancy, maternal self-reported health and maternal long-standing illness. The insights will be of interest to all those concerned with child development in contemporary New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and other similar countries. | |||||
Hannan, C., Halpin, B., Coleman, C. | 2013 | Growing up in a One-Parent Family | Open | Family Support Agency | |
The purpose of this report is to investigate the known correlation between non-traditional family structures and poor outcomes for children. Discussions of this topic often focus on the distinction between two-parent families and one-parent families but this distinction can be misleading. In the Irish case, the crucial distinction is between children raised by parents who are married and children raised by a lone-parent who has never been married. The focal point here is non-marriage. This is important since non-marriage appears to be highly selective because the least privileged groups in Irish society are more likely to have children outside of marriage and at a relatively early age. This argument suggests that selection bias accounts for much of the association between family structure and child outcome i.e. growing up in a non-traditional family has little ‘direct’ or ‘causal’ effect on a child’s outcome. A large body of literature exists which documents a correlation between non-traditional family structure and poorer child development but researchers disagree as to whether this association represents a true causal effect. The primary objective of the current study, therefore, is to test this selection argument and to examine the extent to which selection effects can account for differences in child wellbeing in various family types. | |||||
Murray, A. | 2017 | Growing Up in Ireland and longitudinal research on educational transitions | Open | Inklusive Übergänge: (Inter)nationale Perspektiven auf Inklusionim Übergang von der Schule in weitere Bildung, Ausbildung oder Beschäftigung | |
Mihut, G., McCoy, S. | 2021 | Growing Up in Ireland: Insights on inclusion in schools | Open | Ireland's Yearbook of Education 2019/2020 | |
Gibbons, R.A., Sprong, S., Chzhen, Y. | 2023 | Growing Up in the Great Recession: The Effects of Three Dimensions of Economic Well-being on Child Behavioral Difficulties from Ages 3 to 17 | Open | Journal of Youth and Adolescence | |
Empirical research into the relationship between economic well-being and child outcomes has been limited by its cross-sectional nature, or its narrow focus on predominantly financial aspects of economic well-being. This article attempts to overcome these shortcomings by using data from the Growing Up in Ireland Cohort98 (age: 9–17; N = 5,748; female: 51.4%) and Cohort08 studies (age: 3–9 years; N = 7,208; female: 49.8%), which cover a period of large macroeconomic fluctuation (2007–2017). This fluctuation makes a robust fixed effects analysis feasible, allowing for economic well-being effects to be isolated by controlling for all time-invariant confounders. The article uses three different measures of economic well-being (subjective financial strain, material deprivation, income) to explore how distinct forms of economic well-being affect child behavior. The results suggest that household income is not related to behavioral difficulties, whereas subjective financial strain is predictive of externalized behavioral difficulties in adolescent boys. Material deprivation is predictive of externalized behavioral difficulties in adolescent boys and internalized behavioral difficulties in younger boys, but has no effect on girls’ behavioral outcomes. The findings indicate that the relationship between economic well-being and child behavioral outcomes is complex, and requires multi-dimensional measures of economic well-being to accurately ascertain the different effects. | |||||
Nicholson, E., Doherty, E., Guerin, S., Schreiber, J., Barrett, M., McAuliffe, E. | 2022 | Healthcare utilisation and unmet health needs in children with intellectual disability: a propensity score matching approach using longitudinal cohort data | Open | Journal of Intellectual Disability Research | |
Background Methods Results Conclusions | |||||
Casey, A., Layte, R., Lyons, S., Silles, M. | 2012 | Home computer use and academic performance of nine-year-olds | Open | Oxford Review of Education | |
A recent rise in home computer ownership has seen a growing number of children using computers and accessing the internet from a younger age. This paper examines the link between children’s home computing and their academic performance in the areas of reading and mathematics. Data from the nine-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland survey is adopted for this study. The survey reveals that searching for information is a more popular activity among the children than communicating online. Through regression analysis we find that using a computer is positively and significantly associated with children’s reading and mathematics scores in standardised tests. This result holds after controlling for multiple determinants of school performance. In addition, we investigate the effects of using various applications on the computer. Surfing the internet for fun, doing projects for school and emailing are associated with higher reading and maths test scores, while those who are permitted to use the computer unsupervised tend to have higher maths test scores. Instant messaging and downloading music or watching movies are negatively associated with both reading and maths scores. The results indicate that some forms of early computer use have significant associations with academic performance among children in primary school, although we could not establish the direction of causation definitively. Keywords: home computer use, elementary education, academic performance | |||||
Driscoll, D., Kiely, E., O’Keeffe, L.M., Khashan, A.S. | 2024 | Household energy poverty and trajectories of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and adolescents: findings from two prospective cohort studies | Open | Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology | |
Purpose Methods Results Conclusions | |||||
Laurence, J., Russell, H., Smyth, E. | 2023 | Housing adequacy and child outcomes in early and middle childhood | Open | ESRI Research Series 154 | |
While problems in the housing system in Ireland have been under the spotlight for the last decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the experience of children and to the consequences of housing issues for child development. International research has highlighted a range of effects of poor housing on children. Poor physical housing conditions has been associated with respiratory illnesses and childhood accidents. Overcrowding has been linked to poorer educational outcomes and deprived neighbourhood conditions to socio-emotional problems. Frequent residential mobility has also been found to lead to poorer cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. However, there is a lack of evidence on how far these findings apply in Ireland where levels of home ownership are high and levels of neighbourhood segregation are lower. This study addresses this gap. Drawing on data from the ’08 Cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study, we explore the housing conditions faced by children in early and middle childhood and the implications of these housing experiences for their cognitive, socio-emotional and health outcomes. We adopt a multi-dimensional approach to measuring housing conditions, incorporating housing tenure, suitability of accommodation, heating deprivation, neighbourhood disorder and housing mobility. | |||||
Laurence, J., Russell, H., Smyth, E. | 2024 | Housing, Health and Happiness: How Inadequate Housing Shapes Child and Parental Wellbeing | Open | ESRI Research Series No.183 | |
There has been a good deal of attention in Irish policy discourse to housing supply and affordability. However, there has been less focus on the extent to which the quality of housing impacts the wellbeing of children and their parents. This study addresses this gap in knowledge by using data from Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) Cohort ’08 to explore the influence of housing and neighbourhood quality on parental and child wellbeing. In particular, it looks at how the length of time households have spent experiencing inadequate housing can shape families’ wellbeing. The study adopts a multidimensional approach to measuring inadequate housing, capturing whether the home is unsuitable (in terms of size or problems like damp), whether the household struggles to adequately heat the home, lack of access to a garden or play space, the number of residential moves and the type of tenure. In addition, neighbourhood quality is assessed in terms of local disorder, having low social capital (with few family and friends in the area) and having access to fewer local services. Child wellbeing is measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which captures the extent of children’s socio-emotional difficulties. | |||||
Swift, A., Garcia Iriarte, E., Curry, P., McConkey, R., Gilligan, R., Antunes, M. | 2021 | How Disability and Other Socio-Economic Factors Matter to Children’s Socio-Emotional Outcomes: Results from a Longitudinal Study Conducted in Ireland | Open | Child Indicators Research | |
Children with disabilities experience significantly poorer socio-emotional outcomes than their peers without disabilities. However, research evidence is scarce about children with both disability and migration background, the group which this study aimed to investigate using data from a national longitudinal study. Secondary data analyses were conducted on a sample of 7290 children (weighted with missing values imputed). Significant differences in socio-emotional outcomes were found in relation to impairment status but not in relation to migration. Having an impairment and activity limitation significantly increased the likelihood of experiencing poorer socio-emotional outcomes over time. Our findings highlight a higher risk of socio-emotional problems among children with disabilities, especially among children from lower income backgrounds and with parents with lower educational attainment. These findings clearly require policy development on two fronts: to raise professional and community awareness on these issues and to strengthen the capacity of health, education and social care systems to support schools, families, and communities. |