COVID-19 and social mobility: life prospects in a post-pandemic world

This project will analyse how widening inequalities in education and employment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to impact the life prospects of under 18s.

Research has helped us understand the impact of COVID-19 on learning time, home schooling and labour market outcomes, describing how those from poorer backgrounds have been disproportionately affected. The research team will combine multiple sources of data to create a holistic projection of the likely impact on children’s long-term prospects and social mobility.  This will include projections on a range of outcomes such as school attainment, non-cognitive skills and earnings.

This complex economic framework will consider changes in parental investments of time with their children, income, school hours and quality. It will also account for how the impact of these factors varies by the age and gender of the affected children. The framework will model skill formation in three defined stages: early childhood (up to age 5), middle childhood (up to age 11), and later childhood (up to age 17).

The research team will be:

1. Using the Millennium Cohort Study to develop a model which links parental investments of time, resources, and school quality to measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills at different ages.
2. Applying the model to Understanding Society, allowing the research team to assess the impact of changes caused by COVID-19 on pupil’s attainment.
3. Estimating how the differences in pupils’ attainment will influence their future earnings. This information will be compared to the cohorts who entered the labour market during the 2008 recession.
4. Combining the results from the 2^nd and 3^rd stages to produce estimates of social mobility.
5. Gathering data from other countries on school closures, labour market outcomes and social mobility statistics to place the UK in an international context.
6. Working with policy makers to understand the policy implications as the UK looks to recover from COVID-19.

The project aims to inform policy discussions across the four nations of the UK and public debates on how to address inequalities in education and the workplace. A series of reports, briefings, and other outputs will be produced for the public, interested practitioners and academics. Policy focused seminars will share emerging finding with government advisers and officials. Young people will be consulted throughout the research.