This report considers the extent to which differences in parental characteristics explain gaps in cognitive and socio-emotional development between children at older ages. It documents and explores the differences between children born to cohabiting and married couples for a range of other...

We compare patterns of movements into and out of poverty by children in Britain and Germany using data from the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1992-7. Compared to Germany, in Britain poverty persistence is greater, and poverty exit rates in...

This paper compares child poverty dynamics cross-nationally using panel data from seven nations: the USA, Britain, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Hungary and Russia. As well as using standard relative poverty definitions the paper examines flows into and out of the poorest fifth of the children's...

Parity-specific probabilities of having a next birth are estimated from national fertility data and are compared with nation-specific costs of having children as measured by time-budget data, by attitude data from the International Social Survey Program, and by panel data on labor earnings and...

This study of the emergence of inequality during the early years is based upon a comparative analysis of children at the age of about five years in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. We study a series of child outcomes related to readiness to learn, focusing on...

The need for education to help every child rather than focus on average attainment has become a more central part of the policy agenda in the US and the UK. Remedial programmes are often difficult to evaluate because participation is usually based on pupil characteristics that are largely...

We examine the effect of survey measurement error on the empirical relationship between child mental health and personal and family characteristics, and between child mental health and educational progress. Our contribution is to use unique UK survey data that contains (potentially biased)...

We show that in the US, the UK, Italy and Sweden women whose first child is a boy are less likely to work in a typical week and work fewer hours than women with first-born girls. The puzzle is why women in these countries react in this way to the sex of their first child, which is chosen...

This paper uses propensity score matching methods to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and children's cognitive and noncognitive development. We find that breastfeeding for four weeks is positively and statistically significantly associated with higher cognitive test scores, by...