Family background, educational achievement and labour market outcomes: A cross-national comparison

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It is a much commented upon fact that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to do well at school, go to university and obtain a well-paid, professional job than their more advantaged peers. This problem has become a major public policy issue, with successive governments attempting to tackle the root causes of this low social mobility. This has led to cross-party discussions of how social mobility can be increased in England (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/social-mobility.htm) with the current coalition government setting this as a top social policy goal (http://www.dpm.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/social-mobility-strategy-launched). Policymakers have shown particular interest in the lessons that England can learn from other countries about how this might be achieved. For instance, the Deputy Prime Minister (Nick Clegg), Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove) and Leader of the Opposition (Ed Miliband) all recently spoke about how disadvantaged young people in Australia and Canada have much better prospects in life than those in England and the United States (http://www.suttontrust.com/research/social-mobility-summit-research-findings/). For England to become a fairer and more cohesive society, it is vital that we understand why this is the case; are there certain things other countries are doing to help poor children that we are not?This project shall examine how family background shapes later lifetime outcomes across a range of developed countries. I will first of all investigate whether 'those who are born poor are more likely to stay poor and those who inherit privilege are more likely to pass on privilege in England than in any comparable country' as has been claimed by leading politicians (Michael Gove). To do so, I will examine the strength of association between a person's family background, the skills they develop and the pay they receive in later life, using new data on over 100,000 individuals from more than 20 industrialized nations. This will be followed by an investigation of the different pathways young people take during the teenage years, and how this varies across four English speaking countries (England, Canada, Australia and the United States). This will include the important decisions of when to leave school, whether to go to university, and the chances of suffering an extended spell of youth unemployment. For instance, although we know that children from disadvantaged homes have difficulty in accessing higher education in England (particularly 'elite' institutions like Oxford and Cambridge), does the same hold true in other supposedly more socially mobile countries like Canada and Australia? If not, then what do these countries do differently to us? Is it that they provide more financial assistance, have lower tuition fees or is it simply that in other countries children's achievement in school are more equal? To answer these questions I shall investigate the school-to-work transitions made by over 40,000 children from across these four countries, using a different data set from each. The project will use this large-scale data and apply quantitative analysis methods, with the likely findings offering significant benefits to a number of groups. Young people will gain an insight into the consequences of undertaking different educational and occupational pathways, encouraging them to carefully consider the right option for them. Academics and educationalists will have a better understanding of how socio-economic inequalities emerge across different countries and the reasons why opportunities differ so markedly between children from rich and poor homes. Finally, policymakers will benefit from the recommendations the project shall make about how to equalize opportunities amongst advantaged and disadvantaged groups (an important policy goal).