Young Lives and Times: The Crafting of Young People's Relationships Dataset

This study followed an age cohort of young people to explore the unfolding of their personal and family relationships over time, and their changing educational aspirations and achievements. We aimed to shed light on how young people practice and 'work out' their personal relationships and identities at a time of intense change through their teenage years, and in relation to their values and aspirations for the future. There is evidence to suggest that the life chances of young people - their ability to achieve stable relationships in adult life, and to achieve well educationally - are causally linked to their earlier family experiences. However, longitudinal data that can shed light on how these influences operate are limited. We aimed to investigate these patterns and processes through a broadly constructed sample of young people, and more intensively through a subsample of young people entering early parenthood.