{"id":71319,"date":"2016-06-09T17:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=dc5d38994a4a7b8c7aeafd9f2e393115"},"modified":"2016-06-09T17:00:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T17:00:14","slug":"press-release-socio-economic-influences-on-childrens-life-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=71319","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Socio-economic influences on children\u2019s life chances"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Social Mobility Commission today (9 June 2016) publishes a new study<\/a> by Oxford University (Nuffield College) describing the childhood origins of social mobility and how these have changed over time.<\/p>\n

Using data from the 1960s to the present day, the report finds some improvements in the early life chances of the United Kingdom\u2019s least advantaged children. But it uncovers a wide social divide between children from families with high and low socio-economic status (SES<\/abbr>) in building the childhood foundations for mobility in later life – such as dads reading to, and parents playing with, their kids.<\/p>\n

The report is inspired by \u2018Our Kids\u2019, Robert Putnam\u2019s alarming portrait of growing inequality in the United States in relation to parental time investment, spending on extracurricular activities, educational success and parents\u2019 social capital. This report was commissioned by the Social Mobility Commission for the purpose of replicating for the British case, as far as possible, the findings in \u2018Our Kids\u2019.<\/p>\n

Overall the picture in the United Kingdom does not look as bleak as in the United States. Families eating their evening meals together, for example, do not vary much by SES<\/abbr>, and inequalities are not worsening over time. Levels of truancy fell from 15% of pupils in 1999 to 2000 to 10% in 2013 to 2014, with the socio-economic gap narrowing from 11 percentage points to 5 percentage points over this period.<\/p>\n

Other positive improvements include an increase – from 90% to 95% in the same period in attendance at parents\u2019 evenings at schools with a narrowing in the social class gap – from 20 percentage points in 2004 to 12 percentage points in 2013.<\/p>\n

Parents helping with homework increased overall from 81% to 83% while the socio-economic gap closed from 15 percentage points in 2004 to 4 percentage points in 2013.<\/p>\n

The likelihood of mothers reading regularly to their children also increased substantially between 1965 and 2006, from 50% to 95%. Similarly, the amount of time parents invest in doing developmental activities such as playing or reading with their young children (which we call here \u2018Gruffalo\u2019 time) saw an average increase from 23 minutes per day in 1975 to 80 minutes per day in 2015.<\/p>\n

But worryingly the report finds that in areas vital to child development and attainment at school, gaps are widening between high and low SES<\/abbr> families when it comes to:<\/p>\n