by Johanna Mitterhofer
Britain still struggles with inequality, more so than many other industrialised countries and more so than it was a generation ago.
The recently released Report of the National Equality Panel shows that in Britain your origin matters greatly to who you will become. Policy interventions, focusing on education, unemployment, poverty reduction, are therefore needed throughout the life cycle to counter these inequalities.
Chaired by Professor John Hills, Director of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, and made up of a number of other ESRC-funded researchers, the Independent National Equality Panel documents the relationships between inequalities in people's economic outcomes - such as earnings, incomes and wealth - and their characteristics and circumstances - such as gender, age and ethnicity.
"Inequalities show early in life."
The report shows that 'equality of opportunity' remains an ideal, and is far from being the reality in the UK. While some of the widest gaps between earnings of women and men, or in educational achievements between ethnic groups, have narrowed in the last decade, large and systematic inequalities in life outcomes remain. As already suggested in the 1960s birth cohort study evidence, disadvantage (and advantage) is transferred from one generation to another. "It is not that your origins determine your chances in life," Professor Hills says. "The children of poor parents can do well and the children of rich parents can do badly. But your origins and your parents' income provide a series of nudges that tend to push people in a particular direction."
Inequalities show early in life. Children's school readiness differs significantly depending on parents' resources and social class. This underscores the importance of reducing child poverty and educational attainments of poorer children. The Millennium Cohort Study provides similar findings. According to this longitudinal study co-funded by the ESRC, social class leads to gaps in children's attainment already at the age of 22 months, with vocabulary scores of the sons and daughters of graduates twelve months ahead of those with the least educated parents. However, the study also shows that parental involvement in a child's schooling for a child aged between seven and 16 is a more powerful force than family background, size of family and level of parental education. Policies that aid parents in giving their children the necessary support are therefore essential.
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