Child development and intergenerational linkages, Anna Cristina d'Addio

Résumé du document

This text was published in March 2007 in the "OECD Social, Employment, and Migration Working Papers", and was written by Anna Cristina d'Addio. The aim of this paper is to analyze intergenerational mobility in OECD countries and especially the factors affecting it. Intergenerational mobility is defined as the change of social position of an individual in comparison to his parents. This mobility can be vertical and upward when the movement is bottom up (the son of a worker becomes an executive), vertical and downward when the movement is from top to bottom (the son of an executive becomes a worker) or horizontal when there is neither social regression nor social upward mobility.

Extraits

[...] It can affect any individual, not just those from privileged backgrounds and who have got, as they say, "relations". All the relationships are not worth the same: some are more useful than others, which creates inequality there. How resources affect child development? The idea is that the child can take symbolic or material advantage of his legacy. Education and parental income The amount of money spent on education varies depending on the family income. So, a low-income family meets term difficulties in financing its children's education. Child may feel school as a hostile environment. [...]

[...] Child development and intergenerational linkages, Anna Cristina d'Addio This text was published in March 2007 in the “OECD Social, Employment, and Migration Working Papers”, and was written by Anna Cristina d'Addio. The aim of this paper is to analyze intergenerational mobility in OECD countries and especially the factors affecting it. Intergenerational mobility is defined as the change of social position of an individual in comparison to his parents. This mobility can be vertical and upward when the movement is bottom up the son of a worker becomes an executive), vertical and downward when the movement is from top to bottom (i.e: the son of an executive becomes a worker) or horizontal when there is neither social regression nor social upward mobility. [...]

[...] What is transmitted and how is it transmitted? The family plays a very important role in the primary socialization of children. The family passes an economic, cultural and social capital on their children, thus contributing to the reproduction of inequalities. It is Pierre Bourdieu, a french sociologist dead in 2002, who first used the systematic typology resumed by Anna Cristina d'Addio. Human capital The term refers to all cultural resources available to an individual (language skills, mastery of artistic tools, etc . most often attested by certificates. [...]

[...] Indeed, we are certainly not all born equal contrary to what the French constitution says. Nevertheless, there is upward intergenerational mobility but at variable levels of difficulty, depending on our initial social environment. To conclude, social policies must determine the factors influencing child development in order to promote equality in terms of social mobility. Thus, many experts advocate a strong investment in early childhood because it would have a significant impact on academic achievement and other elements such as violence, drug use etc. [...]