How do Socioeconomic Attainment Gaps in Early Mathematical Ability Arise?

The socioeconomic attainment gap in mathematical ability is evident before children begin school and widens over time. Little is known about why this early attainment gap emerges. Two studies were conducted in 3- and 4-year-olds, to explore four possible factors that may explain why attainment gaps arise: working memory, inhibitory control, verbal ability, and frequency of home mathematical activities (N = 304, 54% female from a range of ethnic backgrounds but predominantly White British [76%]). Inhibitory control and verbal ability emerged as indirect factors in the relation between socioeconomic status and early mathematical ability, but neither working memory nor home mathematical activities did. These studies provide important insights about how the early attainment gap in mathematical ability may arise.

Adolescent Disability, Post-16 Destinations, and Early Socioeconomic Attainment: Initial Evidence from Next Steps

Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the prevalence of adolescent disability. However, research on the life-course transitions and trajectories of disabled adolescents remains sparse. This working paper addresses the lack of longitudinal evidence surrounding school-to-work transitions of disabled young people in England. We analyse longitudinal data from Next Steps in order to provide a descriptive analysis of post- 16 transitions and early socioeconomic attainment of disabled young people in England. Our analysis moves beyond existing studies by examining the whole range of post-16 destinations, and by exploring variation between different disability categories wherever possible. We also examine whether disability differentials in post-16 destinations and economic activity in early adulthood vary by social class, ethnicity, and gender, highlighting opportunities for intersectional analyses. Overall, our results show substantial disability differentials in post-16 destinations. We find that disabled young people are less likely to stay in post-16 education and more likely to experience unemployment compared to non- disabled peers. Results reveal inequalities in the type of post-16 education young people follow too, with disabled cohort members more likely to be in general Further Education colleges and less likely to attend school sixth forms and sixth form colleges, as well as university, compared to students with no long-standing limiting conditions and/or learning difficulties. We find pronounced disability gaps in young people’s main activity at age 25, documenting variations by other social divisions. We also outline avenues for future research on adolescent disability and social inequality.

The Long Arm of Conflict: How Timing Shapes the Impact of Childhood Exposure to War

This paper examines how the timing of childhood exposure to armed conflict influences both the magnitude of the impact it has on later-life health and the pathways through which those impacts manifest. Utilizing the Survey of Health and Retirement in Europe, we examine cohorts of children during World War II. We find that cohorts born during the war show the largest negative effects of exposure on health in later life. The pathways also vary the timing of exposure. Consistent with a latent critical period process, children born during the war experienced increased risk of poor health and illness in childhood, as well as adult cardiometabolic conditions and poor functional health. Conversely, cohorts born before the war experienced more indirect pathways consistent with cumulative disadvantage processes and institutional breakdown. These pathways include stunted socioeconomic attainment, increased risk behaviors, and poorer mental health. Overall, this study emphasizes that the timing of exposure is critical to understanding the long-term health effects of war.

Generations of Veterans: Socioeconomic Attainment from World War II to the Contemporary Era

Scholars have long examined how generations or, more technically, cohorts produce social change. According to theory, people’s lives are shaped by the years in which they were born because they experience, along with their peers, particular historical events at the same points in the life course. Despite the importance of history, however, many scholars have evaluated cohorts not defined by clear start and end dates, but rather by arbitrary cut points, such as five-year intervals. In contrast, this article uses defined changes in military service in the United States stemming from shifts between war and peace, and from draft to volunteer service to assess how cohorts have contributed to change in socioeconomic attainment. It uses the Current Population Survey from 1971 to 2017, which has not previously been used to evaluate how veteran status may have produced shifting outcomes across cohorts. It finds evidence that cohorts had different average income overall and between groups, with veterans earning more money than nonveterans who were eligible to serve during the draft era before the Vietnam War. These gaps are partially explained by racial and educational differences. The findings provide a model for analyses of changes in the relative status of other groups, as well as information about how the role of military service in social mobility changed historically.

Historical Chinese Microdata. 40 Years of Dataset Construction by the Lee-Campbell Research Group

The Lee-Campbell Group has spent forty years constructing and analysing individual-level datasets based largely on Chinese archival materials to produce a scholarship of discovery. Initially, we constructed datasets for the study of Chinese demographic behaviour, households, kin networks, and socioeconomic attainment. More recently, we have turned to the construction and analysis of datasets on civil and military officials and other educational and professional elites, especially their social origins and their careers. As of July 2020, the datasets include nominative information on the behaviour and life outcomes of approximately two million individuals. This article is a retrospective on the construction of these datasets and a summary of their findings. This is the first time we have presented all our projects together and discussed them and the results of our analysis as a single integrated whole. We begin by summarizing the contents, organization, and notable features of each dataset and provide an integrated history of our data construction, starting in 1979 up to the present. We then summarize the most important results from our research on demographic behaviour, family, and household organization, and more recently inequality and stratification. We conclude with a reflection on the importance of data discovery, flexibility, interaction and collaboration to the success of our efforts.

“Healthier Than Just Healthy”: Families Transmitting Health as Cultural Capital

As the relationship between social class and health strengthens and socioeconomic and health inequalities widen, understanding how parents’ socioeconomic advantage translates into health and class advantages in the next generation is increasingly important. Our analyses illustrate how a classed performance of “health” is a fundamental component of transmitting cultural capital in families and communities. Socially advantaged parents’ health and class goals for children are often met simultaneously by building children’s cultural capital in community-specific ways. This study uses observational, interview, and focus group data from families in two middle-class communities to illustrate how health-focused cultural capital acquisition plays out in everyday life. As parents manage children’s lives to ensure future advantages, they often focus on health-related behaviors and performances as symbols of class-based distinction for their children. The synergy between family and community cultural capital is strengthening class and health advantages for some children, even as health-focused cultural capital often has drawbacks for stress and well-being. The intensification of and value placed on “health” in cultural capital may have long-term implications for health, socioeconomic attainment, and inequalities. If health-focused cultural capital continues to become increasingly salient for status attainment, its importance could grow, widening these gaps and reducing intergenerational mobility.

Prevalence of disability using rapid assessment of disability toolkit among adult residents of rural Delhi, India

Background: India is committed to ensure development inclusive of persons with disability. Recently a sensitive and specific Rapid Assessment of Disability toolkit has been developed to assess the disability prevalence by United Nations Convention on Disability. Studies using this toolkit in India are inadequate leading to paucity of data regarding disability. The present study was conducted to assess the prevalence of disability among adults of a rural area of Delhi.Methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study, carried out among adults of Fatehpur Beri village, Delhi. A total of 660 participants were assessed using the rapid assessment of disability toolkit. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the prevalence, Chi-square and Fischer’s exact test was used for bivariate analysis.Results: The prevalence of disability was found to be 8.6% and was similar among both genders. A higher proportion of persons with disability belonged to lower socioeconomic class, were likely to be unmarried, widow/widower, separated/divorced also either illiterate or had studied till primary school only and more often unemployed as compared those without disability.Conclusions: Persons with disability had a significantly lower educational, occupational, socioeconomic attainment. Large scale studies are needed to provide data for planning inclusive development.