Life in Your Early 50s Survey

Update: March 2024

The Life in Your Early 50s survey has now concluded.

It took us up until early 2024 to get round to interviewing you all. We were pleased to be able to visit you in person again after the COVID-19 pandemic and are also very grateful to those who took part by video call for the first time.

More than 8,000 of you completed the survey. This includes 369 study members who hadn’t taken part since the Age 42 Survey.

What we asked

The Life in Your Early 50s Survey consisted of an interview, a paper self-completion questionnaire, and an online dietary questionnaire. In the interview, we asked you about some familiar topics, including your relationships with friends and family, your employment and income, and your physical and mental health.

We also asked you about how your life continues to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Family circumstances can have a huge impact on our lives, so we also asked some questions about partners, parents, children and other people you may live with.

To see how your experiences and circumstances at this important stage in your lives might differ from previous generations, we asked you questions that participants in older cohorts had answered during their early 50s.

Getting help with issues raised in the survey

We hope taking part in our survey has been a positive experience. We know lots of people enjoy taking time out to think about and answer questions about their lives.

But if it leaves you worrying about anything that’s happening in your life, there are organisations you can talk to. Visit our helplines page for more information.