Previous studies have not considered differences in the composition of regions of England in understanding progression to Higher Education in conjunction with the socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds of young people. The main reason for this is that many datasets do not support analysis at these levels. Our study sought to do this by using linked survey and administrative data.
The analysis was based on the myanmar rcs data Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, also called Next Steps. This is a representative cohort study of 15,770 young people aged 13/14 in England in 2004 and currently includes information up to age 25 in 2016.
Three further linkages made the analysis possible. Educational attainment in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) qualifications at age 15/16 is available with linked National Pupil Database data. Geographical characteristics of the local area in which the young person grew up at age 14, including region and area-level deprivation, are included as supplementary files with identifiers for the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) provided. We then subsequently linked this to further information on the distance of the LSOA to the nearest coast provided by Wheeler et al. .
This enabled us to derive a measure which classified whether the young person grew up in an urban inland, urban coastal, rural inland or rural coastal area. We were then able to estimate logistic regression models adjusting for complex survey design which included geographical and individual-level predictors.