Pre-school educational inequality? British children in the 1970 cohort

This paper considers mobility in and explanation of the position of children in the distribution of ability at different ages. Using the sub-samples of the BCS Cohort, it is found that 42 month ability rank provides a fairly stable guide to position in the distribution at age ten and that for girls, even the 22 month score is fairly stable. The paper then considers the question of the association of ability rank with the social background of children. It is found that children of women with degrees are substantially higher in the distribution than other children even at 22 months. By 42 months SES is also important, becoming still more important by age ten. A forecast equation for household income is developed. This is also found to be strongly associated with pre-school ability rank.