Intergenerational and Life-Course Transmission of Social Exclusion: Influences and Childhood Poverty, Family Disruption and Contact with the Police

Abstract

This study uses data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a longitudinal study of children born in 1958, to examine the following questions. How far is social exclusion and disadvantage transmitted from parents to their children and from childhood into adulthood? In particular, how far do childhood experiences of poverty, family discruption, and contact with the police link to adult outcomes? What associations are there for a range of other parental and childhood factors - social class of origin, social class during childhood, housing, tenure, father's and mother's interest in schooling, 'aggression', 'anxiety', and 'restlessness', and educational test scores? And how do these factors link to outcomes by age 33, including three indicators of demographic behaviour, one of psychological well-being, three of welfare position, two of educational qualifications and three of economic position? Which childhood factors have a general influence on adult exclusion and are there specific 'inheritance' patterns?