Panel Survey

Cohort Panel Surveys

A cohort panel survey is the simplest example of a single panel of indefinite life. It is an individual-level panel focusing on a population subgroup that has experienced the same event during the same time period (a cohort), such as having been born in a particular month, being a high school graduate in a given year, or having been married during the same year.

Cohort panel surveys are also called “fixed panel surveys,” since the definition of membership of the cohort is fixed and cannot change over time. The rules for following the sample units in subsequent waves are simple: At each wave of the cohort panel survey, interviews are attempted with all original cohort members. After the initial sample selection, no additions to the sample are made.

Cohort panels are often set up to study long-term change and individual development processes, such as transitions into adulthood and marital or other union formation and dissolution. The data of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), for example, provide researchers with an opportunity to study the life-course experiences of a group of individuals representative of all men and women born in the 1970s in Great Britain. More specifically, the BCS70 follows more than 17,000 men and women born in Great Britain in a specific week in 1970. Since the first wave of data collection in 1970 (age 0), there have been six other major data collection waves, in 1975 (age 5), 1980 (age 10), 1986 (age 16), 1996 (age 26), 1999/2000 (age 29/30), and 2004/2005 (age 34/35). This cohort panel survey collected data on many aspects of the health, social development, and education of the cohort members as they passed through childhood and adolescence. In the more recent waves, the information collected covers transitions into adult life, including leaving full-time education, entering the labor market, setting up independent homes, forming partnerships, and becoming parents.

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