The impact of parental and local socio-economic shocks in childhood on young adults' expectations and perceived social norms

Families' socio-economic status, parental education and local economic conditions play a critical role in child development and are formative factors for their future education and life choices. Several studies have established the impact of families' socio-economic background on children' education and other important life outcomes (Almond et al., 2018). This project aims to offer a broader perspective on the effect of childhood circumstances and focus on their role in the formation of preferences, future beliefs (subjective expectations), personality and prosocial behaviour. All of these have been shown to significantly affect life choices.
The first part of the project investigates whether family shocks - i.e. parental unemployment - experienced during childhood unfold long-run impacts on the personality and future beliefs of young adults. The second part explores the influence of changes in local public funding for youth services such as youth clubs and sports facilities - experienced as a result of the UK austerity policy or from the allocation of National lottery profits to local sports clubs, social and cultural venues - on personality, socio-emotional development and future beliefs. These are linked to public policies discussed as components of the UK's `levelling up' strategy and to reduce youth crime but could also have long-run effects.
The first and second projects are based on the Millennium Cohort Study, a longitudinal panel of about 19,000 children born in the UK at the turn of the Millennium. These children, and their families, have been surveyed since birth, which offers the opportunity to precisely measure life events, including shocks that might be specific to the family (e.g. parental unemployment) or to the municipality (e.g. local government funding shocks). The focus will be on respondents' subjective expectations about attending higher education, employment and earnings at age 30 which were elicited at age 17, just before the end of compulsory schooling, in a module of MSC developed by - among others - my envisaged supervisors Profs Chevalier and Luhrmann. In addition, the project will exploit measures of personality at age 17, and socio-emotional development which has been elicited throughout childhood.