Intergenerational transmission of human capital: implications for poverty, inequality and policy

在过去50年中，家庭环境在关键方面发生了重大变化，如母亲的教育、就业和收入、父亲对抚养子女的参与以及单亲母亲的普遍程度。这些变化加剧了家庭环境中的不平等，特别是通过母亲教育。受教育程度较低的母亲现在更有可能离婚并生下未婚子女；受教育程度较高的母亲现在更有可能继续工作，工资稳步增长。这些趋势引起了人们对其对儿童发展和不平等的影响的极大关切，因为儿童的结果和父母的选择是相关的。越来越多的证据表明，社会经济背景和更广泛的童年经历差异与儿童从婴儿期开始的发展以及教育、就业、收入、家庭形成和犯罪等终身结果有关。儿童结果与父母结果的关联程度是衡量社会机会不平等程度的标准，这是许多政策辩论的焦点。尽管家庭特征和选择对儿童的能力和机会的重要性已明确确立，但推动这些关系的机制在很大程度上仍未得到探索。由于政策可以影响父母的选择，了解儿童结果与父母特征和选择之间的相互作用对于制定和评估旨在改善儿童福祉、减少贫困和长期塑造不平等的政策至关重要。该项目的目的是通过调查父母特征、对儿童的投资和儿童结果之间的相互作用，并研究这些相互作用对贫困、不平等以及儿童保育、教育和福利政策的设计的影响，来填补这一空白。它侧重于人力资本(HC)的代际传递，这是经济福祉的关键决定因素。研究家庭特征和对儿童的投资对儿童发展的重要性及其政策影响面临两个关键困难。首先，对儿童的投资与推动家庭特征的终生决定密切相关。例如，利他主义的父母在决定自己的教育、婚姻和劳动力供应时，会考虑子女的预期结果，因为这些决定会影响家庭资源及其在养育孩子方面的价值。其次，从经验上量化这些关系需要很长的纵向数据，将父母的一生决定及其决定因素与孩子的结果联系起来。这个项目结合了来自英国和美国多个来源的丰富的纵向数据，以及HC的代际传递模型，以促进对不平等的根源和政策在促进平等机会方面的作用的认识。该模型有四个主要组成部分：1.儿童时期HC的形成过程，通过对父母的时间、育儿和其他投资的顺序投资积累起来；2.生命过程模型，将父母教育、婚姻、离婚、工作和家庭内部资源分配正规化；3.婚姻市场；4.对税收和福利制度的详细描述。该项目将就父母的特征和选择与孩子的结果联系起来的机制提供新的经验证据。它将解释父母双方在家庭幸福和孩子发展方面的HC之间的相互作用，有助于解释HC对婚姻的价值。它将衡量教育、婚姻、离婚和家庭资源之间的动态联系，以及它们对资源和儿童投资不平等的影响。了解这些联系是评估对政策改革的整体反应的关键；该项目是第一个探索终身决策之间的联系的项目，以研究政策对HC传播的影响。

Family circumstances changed significantly over the past 50 years on key dimensions such as mother's education, employment and earnings, father's involvement in raising children, and the prevalence of lone-motherhood. These changes increased inequality in home environments, particularly by maternal education. Less educated mothers are now more likely to divorce and have children out-of-wedlock; more educated mothers are now more likely to work continuously and their wages have increased steadily. These trends raise great concerns about their implications for child development and inequality because child outcomes and parental choices are related. Growing evidence links socio-economic background and broader differences in childhood experiences to child development from early infancy and to life-long outcomes such as education, employment, income, family formation and crime.The degree to which child outcomes are related to those of parents is a measure of the inequality of opportunities in a society, the focus of much policy debate. Although the importance of family characteristics and choices for the abilities and opportunities of children is clearly established, the mechanisms that drive these relations remain largely unexplored. Since policy can influence parental choices, understanding the interplay between child outcomes and parental characteristics and choices is critical to inform the design and evaluation of policies aiming to improve child wellbeing, reduce poverty and shape inequality in the long-term.The aim of this project is to fill this gap by investigating the interactions between parental characteristics, investments in children and child outcomes, and studying the implications of these interactions for poverty, inequality, and the design of childcare, education and welfare policies. It focuses on the inter-generational transmission of human capital (HC), a key determinant of economic wellbeing.Studying the importance of family characteristics and investments in children for child development and its policy implications faces two key difficulties. First, investments in children and lifetime decisions driving family characteristics are closely related. E.g., altruistic parents take their offspring expected outcomes into account when deciding about their own education, marriage and labour supply because these decisions affect family resources and their value in raising children. Second, quantifying empirically these relationships requires long longitudinal data, linking parents' lifetime decisions and its determinants with child outcomes.This project combines rich longitudinal data from several sources for the UK and the US with a model of intergenerational transmission of HC to advance knowledge on the roots of inequality and the role of policy in promoting equal opportunities. The model has four main building blocks: 1. a process of HC formation in childhood, accumulated through sequential investments of both parent's time, childcare and other investments; 2. a model of the life course, formalising parental education, marriage, divorce, working and the intra-household allocation of resources; 3. the market for marriage; 4. a detailed description of the tax and welfare system. The project will produce new empirical evidence on the mechanisms linking parental characteristics and choices with child outcomes. It will account for the interplay between the HC of both parents for family wellbeing and child development, helping to explain the value of HC for marriage. It will measure the dynamic links between education, marriage, divorce and family resources, and their implications for inequality in resources and investments in children. Understanding these links is key to assess responses to policy reforms in their entirety; this project is the first to explore the links between lifetime decisions to study the effects of policy on the transmission of HC.