Scotland's Baby Box: parents' view on contents

2 Method and Sample

2.1 Research method

The research was conducted using a semi-structured Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing ( CATI) survey. The questionnaire consisted mainly of closed questions, with some follow-up questions to collect more detailed qualitative feedback where relevant.

The sample database of parents who had signed up to receive a Baby Box and had consented to re-contact for research purposes was provided by the Scottish Government. No quotas were set due to the limited sample available (873 records).

In total, 204 interviews were achieved. This sample provides a dataset with a margin of error of between ±1.35% and ±6.80%, calculated at the 95% confidence level (market research industry standard).

Fieldwork was conducted between 6 and 18 October 2017. All fieldwork was undertaken in accordance with the requirements of ISO 20252 and the Market Research Society Code of Conduct.

2.2 Sample profile

Date of birth of baby and receipt of the Baby Box

Babies receiving the Baby Box were most likely to have been born in August (42%) or September (36%). A smaller proportion were born in October (15%) or July (<1%), and 6% had not been born yet at the time of interview. Most respondents (80%) had received their Baby Box in August; 20% had received it in September.

Demographic profile

The sample profile is outlined in Table 1. Almost all parents interviewed were female (97%). Respondents tended to be in the 30-34 (34%) or 25-29 age groups (32%); there were smaller proportions of younger mums (11% under 25) and older mums (22% aged 35+).

Most respondents were either in full-time (52%) or part-time (25%) paid work (including on maternity leave). Respondents tended to be in higher socio-economic groups compared to the Scottish average: 64% of the sample fell into the higher ABC1 groups (compared to a Scottish average of 45%). The majority were married or cohabiting (82%).

Table 1: Sample profile – Gender, age, socio-economic group, working status and marital status

	%		%
Gender		Socio-economic group [5]
Female	97%	AB	23%
Male	3%	C1	42%
		C2	15%
Age		DE	18%
Under 19	1%
19-21	2%		Working status
22-24	7%	Full-time paid work (including self-employed)	52%
25-29	32%	Part-time paid work (including self-employed)	25%
30-34	34%	Unemployed	15%
35-39	18%	Long-term sick/disabled without a job	1%
40-44	3%	Looking after the home/family	4%
45-49	1%	Full time education	1%
50+	-	Prefer not to say	*
Prefer not to say	*
			Marital status
		Single	16%
		Married / cohabiting	82%
		Other	1%
		Prefer not to say	*

Base (all): 204

The achieved sample covered all NHS Health Boards apart from the Western Isles, where no sample was available. The sample closely reflects the profile of the sample database (see Table 2). There was also a good spread in terms of Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation ( SIMD): roughly 20% fell into each quintile.

Table 2: Sample profile – NHS Health Board and SIMD

	% achieved interviews	% sample database		% achieved interviews
NHS Health Board			SIMD quintile
Ayrshire & Arran	8%	6%	1 – most deprived	20%
Borders	2%	2%	2	17%
Dumfries & Galloway	2%	1%	3	22%
Fife	4%	7%	4	22%
Forth Valley	5%	6%	5 – least deprived	20%
Grampian	12%	9%
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	25%	27%
Highland	8%	5%
Lanarkshire	5%	5%
Lothian	21%	23%
Orkney	*	1%
Shetland	-	*
Tayside	7%	8%
Western Isles	-	-

Base (all): 204

The sample was evenly split into first time parents (50%) and those with other children (50%) (see Table 3).

Table 3: Sample profile – Other children

	%		%
Number of other children		First time / Experienced parents
First child – no others	50%	First time parents	50%
1	36%	Experienced parents	50%
2	8%
3	4%	Age of other children (multi-coded)
4	-	Up to 2 years	38%
5	*	3~5 years	46%
6	*	6~11 years	33%
		12 years+	9%

Base (all): 204; Base (all with other children): 101

2.3 Notes on analysis and reporting

Sub-group analysis

Sub-group analysis was conducted to examine differences in relation to:

• Age group (<25, 25-29, 30-34, 35+; and under/over 30 due to some small base sizes)
• SIMD quintile (20% most deprived (n=40) vs 80% others)
• Socio-economic group ( ABC1 vs C2DE)
• First time vs experienced parents.

Reporting conventions

Throughout this report, significant differences in the data are noted where they occur, to the 95% confidence level (p<0.05), the market research industry standard. Only significant differences are reported, and the word ‘significant’ refers to statistical significance.

Standard notification is used in tables with ‘*’ used to indicate results of less than 1% and ‘-’ used to indicate no respondents gave a particular answer. For ease of reading the results, ‘1%’ and ‘2%’ notations have been left off some of the charts. In instances where percentages quoted in the text do not match the sum of two figures in the charts, this is due to rounding.

Patterns within/between sub-groups

It is worth noting some patterns between sample sub-groups which should be borne in mind when interpreting the results – there were interlinking patterns in relation to socio-economic group, SIMD data zones, age group and first time/experienced parenting. For example:

Lower socio-economic groups ( C2DE) were more likely to be:

• Living in the most deprived areas (27% were living in the most deprived quintile, compared to 15% of ABC1s)
• Younger parents (18% of C2DEs were under 25 and 56% were under 30, compared to 7%/36% of ABC1s)
• Experienced parents (68% had other children, compared to 39% of ABC1s)

Higher socio-economic groups ( ABC1) were more likely to be:

• Living in the least deprived areas (26% were in the least deprived quintile compared to 11% of C2DEs, and 85% were in the least deprived 80% of data zones compared to 73% of C2DEs)
• Older parents (29% of ABC1s were over 35 and 64% were over 30, compared to 9%/42% of C2DEs)
• First time parents (61% were first time parents, compared to 32% of C2DEs).

Those in the least deprived areas (quintiles 2 to 5) were also more likely to be first time parents (55%, vs 30% in the most deprived quintile), while those in the most deprived areas were most likely to have other children (70% had other children, compared to 45% in the least deprived areas).

However, there were no significant differences by age group in the proportion who were first time parents.