Intergenerational transmission of worklessness: Evidence from the Millennium Cohort and the Longitudinal Study of Young People In England

This research report presents the findings from a study that investigated the extent of parental worklessness in families with young and teenage children, and determined how parental worklessness impacts on children’s cognitive ability, education attainment, behaviours, attitude to school, academic aspirations and experience of the transition from school to work. Drawing on evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), the research included a focus on children in primary education (MCS) to gauge early potential scarring effects from household worklessness and on young people (LSYPE), to consider the transition from school to work and to identify any inter-generational link between parental worklessness and the young person’s likelihood of being Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).