Introduction

The relationship between childhood experiences and subsequent labour market performance as an adult is an important area of study for several reasons. First, we may be interested in looking empirically at the transmission mechanisms that underpin the extent of intergenerational mobility (or immobility) of economic status. It is clear that the association between childhood factors and adult earnings, employment and unemployment is likely to play a role as one such transmission mechanism (or intervening factor). Second, uncovering any links between childhood disadvantage and performance in the adult labour market is useful in shedding light on the way in which pre-labour market factors (other than education which has been widely studied, or early age test scores which have received some, although less, attention2) are connected to labour market success or failure. Third, uncovering such associations may be important in informing future policy related to child outcomes, especially if one can (as we do) study changes over time.

In this chapter we consider what can be said about these kinds of associations, drawing on data from two British birth cohorts, born during a week in March 1958 (the National Child Development Study, NCDS) and during a week in April 1970 (the 1970 British Cohort Study, BCS70). These are unique data sources that follow cohort members from birth, through the childhood years and into adulthood, collecting a huge amount of very rich information along the way. The two surveys have similar structures and, for the some of the analysis, comparisons can be made across the two birth cohorts.

The main findings are as follows:

• • On the basis of studying quite large samples of parents and children, the extent of intergenerational mobility in Britain is limited in terms of earnings and education. If anything, mobility seems to have fallen for the 1970 cohort as compared to the earlier 1958 cohort.

• • Childhood disadvantages (specific to the child and to its parents) are an important factor in maintaining and reinforcing patterns of immobility of economic status across generations.

• • Educational attainment is an important transmission mechanism underpinning the extent of mobility, as it partially ameliorates the (negative) associations with disadvantage.

• • One of the key factors of childhood disadvantage, child poverty, has risen massively in the last 30 years or so. In cross-cohort comparisons child poverty seems to have an important (negative) effect on success in the adult labour market.