The Malmö longitudinal study on education

Summary

The strength of this dataset is that it provides the possibility to follow a cohort in a life-course perspective from education to work, family building and retirement. It can also focus on the role of early cognitive skills and its impact on adaptation in a life-course perspective. The weaknesses is, of course, that it is a selective geographical context.

Type of data

Data Source
Registry + Survey

Type of Study
Survey same

Data gathering method
Face-to-face
Registries
Other: individual tests

Access to data

Conditions of access
Data is only available for research purposes; an agreement with the principal investigator is needed.

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.

Formats available
Dataset is compatible to Excel, SAS, SPSS, STATA, Text, etc.

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
The Malmö study is one of the oldest longitudinal study in education. The cohort includes all the third graders in the county of Malmö in 1938 with a total of 1,542 pupils were included in the study, of which 1,342 were normal-aged (born 1928). Register data has been collected at intervals, fourteen times: 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1991, and 1993. For the five first occasions, the county tax registers were the source of information, and the people involved collected data more or less manually. For 1969 and 1971, data was bought from Statistics Sweden, while from 1978 and onward data was bought from SPAR (a special State Register established at the State Computing Center (DAFA) in 1978). Additional studies have been done in recent years.

First year of collection
1938

Stratification if applicable

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns
cohort of school pupils 1938 in Malmö City

Age range
10 years of age at start – today 85 years of age for surviving respondents

Statistical representativeness
Regional representative, please specify

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
IQ, school achievement, health and family context, social selection and occupation over the life span.

Linkage

Standardisation
Data harmonised with ISCED taxonomy.

Possibility of linkage among databases
Connections with other Swedish datasets are possible, but have to be related to ethical issues and access to data.

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
Contact principal investigator.

Breaks
In 1964, Husén, together with a group at his department, carried out the first questionnaire follow-up, while at the same time collecting data from registers. In 1971, 1984 and 1994 further questionnaires were distributed and collected. The response rate has generally been between 72 and 75 per cent.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
High level of consistency during the process of investigation.

Governance

Contact information
Denny Vågerö / CHESS
University of Stockholm

106 91 Stockholm Sweden Phone: +468-162000
Email: Denny.vagero(at)chess.su.se
Url: http://www.chess.su.se/

Timeliness, transparency
Data is only available for research purposes (agreement with principal investigator needed).