The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth - Overview and Changes After Three Cycles

The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth is a long-term study to monitor child development and well being of Canada’s children as they grow from infancy to adulthood. To do so, a representative sample of Canadian children aged between 0-11 years old was selected and interviewed in 1994- 1995. Interviews are conducted every two years and the current plans are to follow that cohort of children until they reach the age of 25. The survey has now gone through three collection cycles and already a number of changes have been observed. The paper will give an overview of the objectives of the survey, the survey design, the collection methodology, the survey content and the products and research that has already been done on the survey. The last section will present the future direction of the survey.