The initiation of a new cohort study of approximately 18,800 UK babies born in the Millennium provides the opportunity to reflect on the circumstances of children in Britain at the start of a new century. Britain has become world-renowned for its tracking of large-scale and representative cohorts of babies from birth, through the rest of their lives, producing unrivalled data sources for longitudinal research in social sciences and health. This book focuses on the information collected in this new Millennium Cohort Study of these babies covering the period from pregnancy through to nine months old. However, it also offers a perspective from earlier generations in selected respects, to show how circumstances and experiences differ.

The book is a collection of chapters focusing on particular aspects of starting out on life in the 21st century; these include pregnancy experiences; birth experiences; child health; growth and development; parents’ health; household structure; socioeconomic circumstances of parents; employment and education of mothers and fathers; childcare arrangements; household income and attitudes to parenting and employment.

Large-scale studies of this kind have already been found to be extremely valuable to policy makers and governments. They provide a window on children as they grow up. By drawing comparisons with earlier generations, it is possible to see how the new policies and frameworks are changing the life courses of new generations. These Millennium children were born and are spending their early years under a framework of government concern about child poverty. The Labour government that came to power in 1997 set out its aim to eliminate child poverty by 2020. Many new initiatives have been launched to this end. These cover encouragement to parents to enter and remain in paid work; better childcare provisions; more flexible employment; new legal frameworks about the care of children; a framework for considering the health of both adults and children; and attempts to tackle children's growing obesity. In many ways, the turn of the 21st century in the UK is a period of unprecedented policy interest and focus on children and family policy. Some might say it has gone too far, not least because the 2004 sittings of Parliament were voting on whether to allow families to smack their children.