Inequalities in Resources for Preschool-Age Children by Parental Education: Evidence from Six Advanced Industrialized Countries.

This paper provides new evidence on inequalities in resources for children age 3-4 by parental education using harmonized data from six advanced industrialized countries-United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Japan-that represent different social welfare regime types. We analyze inequalities in two types of resources for young children-family income, and center-based child care-applying two alternative measures of parental education-highest parental education, and maternal education. We hypothesize that inequalities in resources by parental education will be less pronounced in countries where social policies are designed to be more equalizing. The results provide partial support for this hypothesis: the influence of parental education on resources for children does vary by the social policy context, although not in all cases. We also find that the measurement of parental education matters: income disparities are smaller under a maternal-only definition whereas child care disparities are larger. Moreover, the degree of divergence between the two sets of estimates differs across countries. We provide some of the first systematic evidence about how resources for young children vary depending on parents' education and the extent to which such inequalities are buffered by social policies. We find that while early inequalities are a fact of life in all six countries, the extent of those inequalities varies considerably. Moreover, the results suggest that social policy plays a role in moderating the influence of parental education on resources for children.

Teacher judgements and gender achievement gaps in primary education in England, Germany, and the US.

We examined whether inaccurate teacher judgements of primary school student achievement correlate with students' gender and whether such bias contributes to gender achievement gaps in language and mathematics. Our study used ex-post harmonised longitudinal data from England, Germany, and the US. We observed domain-specific teacher judgement bias with a positive bias for girls in the language domain and for boys in mathematics. Furthermore, biased teacher judgements partly mediated the effect of gender on later achievement. Despite these common findings, cross-country differences emerged in the extent of teacher judgement bias as well as its mediation of gender achievement gaps. We conclude that this is a topic of relevance across national contexts and where the institutional and societal setting needs more attention in future research.

The role of energy balance related behaviors in socioeconomic inequalities in childhood body mass index: A comparative analysis of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood Body Mass Index (BMI) are becoming increasingly more pronounced across the world. Although countries differ in the direction and strength of these inequalities, cross-national comparative research on this topic is rare. This paper draws on harmonized longitudinal cohort data from four wealthy countries-Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US)-to 1) map cross-country differences in the magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities in childhood BMI, and 2) to examine cross-country differences in the role of three energy-balance-related behaviors-physical activity, screen time, and breakfast consumption-in explaining these inequalities. Children were aged 5-7 at our first timepoint and were followed up at age 8-11. We used data from the German National Educational Panel Study, the Dutch Generation R study, the UK Millennium Cohort Study and the US Early Childhood Longitudinal-Kindergarten Study. All countries revealed significant inequalities in childhood BMI. The US stood out in having the largest inequalities. Overall, inequalities between children with low versus medium educated parents were smaller than those between children with high versus medium educated parents. The role of energy-balance-related behaviors in explaining inequalities in BMI was surprisingly consistent. Across countries, physical activity did not, while screen time and breakfast consumption did play a role. The only exception was that breakfast consumption did not play a role in the US. Cross-country differences emerged in the relative contribution of each behavior in explaining inequalities in BMI: Breakfast consumption was most important in the UK, screen time explained most in Germany and the US, and breakfast consumption and screen time were equally important in the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that what constitutes the most effective policy intervention differs across countries and that these should target both children from medium as well as low educated families.