A review of research evidence suggests that low levels of educationalattainment are crucial in generating and sustaining social exclusion. Testscores at school are the most effective predictor of many adult outcomes.School attendance and soft skills are also important. Reviewing the...

Childhood poverty and early parenthood are both high on the politicalagenda. The key new issue addressed in this research is the relativeimportance of childhood poverty and of early motherhood as correlatesof outcomes later in life. How far are the ‘effects’ of early motherhood onlater...

This paper examines the impact of the transition from a planned toa market economy on living standards and welfare in the fiveRepublics of former Soviet Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, along with the Republicof Azerbaijan. A broad definition of...

Furthering equity as an achievable public policy objective is based on theability to assess needs accurately, and distribute resources accordingly.The purpose of this paper is to plot the development of the formulaegoverning resource allocation in education, health and social housingand to chart...

This study addresses three questions. Firstly, to what extent does divorceduring childhood have long-term consequences for the educationalattainment, economic situation, partnership formation and dissolution, andparenthood behaviour in adulthood? We show that in most of thesedomains children who...

The background to the Report is the public policy debate about the introduction of a Bill of Rights or written constitution that would build on the Human Rights Act (HRA) (1998) and further strengthen human rights protection by codifying new, additional and / or strengthened rights including...

Poverty Street draws on evidence from twelve of the most disadvantagedneighbourhoods in England and Wales, using Census data from 1971, localadministrative data from 1998 onwards, and over 400 interviews conducted in 1999 and2001.The neighbourhoods have multiple problems - unemployment three...

Katharine Mumford reports on her first round of interviews with 100 familiesliving in two East London neighbourhoods. CASE’s qualitative, longitudinalstudy in low income areas seeks to understand area change from theperspective of families, and to uncover the significance of area conditions...

As unemployment falls it is often the most disadvantaged unemployed whoget left behind. To identify what works to improve the job prospects of thisgroup, Helen Evans has looked at Bootstrap Enterprises in Hackney, anexample of a community-based employment project working for 22 years withthis...

This paper tests whether education levels di¤er between leadersselected in autocracies and democracies. We use a unique data seton over 1300 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 and exploit withincountry variation from transitions to and from democracy to show thatdemocracies pick more highly...