From Childhood Deprivation to Adult Social Exclusion: Evidence from the 1970 British Cohort Study

This paper analyses the common trajectories leading to adult social exclusion that children from disadvantaged backgrounds experience during their life courses. Moreover, it provides an assessment of whether education is effective in breaking the vicious circle of disadvantages both across and within generations. Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, this empirical analysis is based on structural equation modelling techniques and proceeds in three steps. The measurement model is first tested to validate three groups of theoretical constructs (childhood disadvantages, adolescent deprivations and a multi-dimensional measure of social exclusion) and their indicators. Next, a path analysis is conducted for describing the trajectories linking childhood disadvantages to social exclusion. In the third step, the multi-faceted role of education is established by measuring the extent to which deprivations in the educational domain directly or indirectly affect all the relevant social exclusion dimensions.