06 May 2008 – Publication of DWP research report 481: 'Analysis of The Choices And Constraints Questions On The Families And Children Survey'

Findings are published today from research into the ‘Analysis of the choices and constraints questions on the Families and Children Survey’. The research tested the proposed analysis of a new question set and card-sort exercise which was used in Wave 8 of the Families and Children Study, which asked mothers about their attitudes towards work and parenting and how big a factor these issues were for mothers when moving into and staying in work. The analysis approach suggested for the new question set was Latent Class Analysis and the research aimed to determine whether this was a reasonable analysis approach that generated plausible and meaningful groups.

The main findings from the research were that:

• Latent Class Analysis appeared to be a very useful tool for describing and summarising the complex data structure that the card-sort exercise generated. It is a sensible default descriptive analysis approach for the card-sort data.
• The clusters that the analysis generated were sufficiently easy to characterise, and sufficiently distinct, that it is plausible that the analysis can be used as a starting point for generating policy interventions and/or marketing strategies that are cluster specific.
• The analysis generated six clusters for non-working mothers, including those with job concerns, those who were a carer by choice, those who had few constraints to working, those who had health problems and two clusters where mothers had a variety of different constraints.
• There were four clusters generated for working mothers as possible constraints on them being able to continue working, ranging from those with few constraints, those who had concerns for children to those with a number of different constraints.

Notes to Editors:

1. ‘Analysis of the choices and constraints questions on the Families and Children Study’ (DWP Research Report number 481) by John D’Souza, Anne Conolly and Susan Purdon is published today as part of the DWP Research Report series. A copy of the report (and summary of the research) can be downloaded from the Department’s website at http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rrs-index.asp
2. The research was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and involved analysis of the Families and Children Study, a regular DWP survey which tracks families in Britain. More information on FACS can be found at http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/facs/

 

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Prepared by: DWP Parents Employment Division