National Institute Economic Review

There is growing evidence that differences in children's intellectual, emotional and behavioural development by parents' socio-economic status emerge at early ages and that these differences cast a long shadow over subsequent achievements. This article demonstrates with the Millennium Cohort Study that differences by parents' income group in cognitive and behavioural development emerge by the child's third birthday. It shows that an important part of these differences can be accounted for by `what parents do' in terms of educational activities and parenting style.

This paper examines the influences of parental social status, childhood cognitive ability, school motivation and education on social status attainment in early adulthood. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), a pathway model of transgenerational status attainment is conceptualised, taking into account the context as well as the timing of individual status transitions. The subjects were 3104 men and 3229 women who participated in the 1958 National Child Development Study and 3049 men and 2692 women from the 1970 British Cohort Study, following their lives from childhood to their mid-thirties. The findings suggest that in both cohorts the number of years spent in full-time education is by far the most important determinant of status attainment among men and women and that there are persistent social inequalities in status attainment. The findings furthermore confirm the hypothesis that social background and cognitive ability are partially mediated through school motivation and education, opening up leverage for possible interventions.

We present analyses of intergenerational social class mobility based on data from representative samples of the British population from 1972 to 2005. We distinguish throughout between absolute and relative rates of mobility. As regards absolute rates, we find little or no change in total mobility rates over the period covered. In the case of men, there is also little change in rates of upward and downward mobility — in contrast with the middle decades of the twentieth century when upward mobility steadily increased while downward mobility fell. This latter pattern does, however, prevail in the case of women. As regards relative rates, we again find, for men and women alike, an essential constancy over time. This, then, indicates that such changes as are apparent in absolute rates derive from shifts in class distributions rather than from any significant increase or decrease in social fluidity. Our results are contrary to the prevailing view in political and media circles that in Britain today the level of social mobility is in decline, although for men the pattern of mobility has become less favourable. We end with some remarks on policy implications.

This article seeks evidence on trends in intergenerational income for cohorts born after 1970. As many of these cohorts have not yet joined the labour market, we must look at relationships between intermediate outcomes (degree attainment, test scores and non-cognitive abilities) and parental income to forecast forward from these to estimates of intergenerational earnings correlations. We find no evidence that the relationship between these intermediate outcomes and parental income have changed for more recent cohorts. Evidence from the earlier 1958 and 1970 cohorts shows that as mobility declined in the past the relationship between intermediate outcomes and parental income strengthened. We therefore conclude that, under realistic assumptions and in the absence of any significant unanticipated changes, the decline in intergenerational mobility that occurred between 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts is unlikely to continue for cohorts born from 1970 to 2000. Mobility is therefore likely to remain at or near the relatively low level observed for the 1970 birth cohort.