IMPACT OF FAMILY INCOME AND PARENTS’ EMPLOYMENT STATUS
Correlations show the relationship between the parent income measure (continuous) and
attainment in Pre-reading and Language (0.37 for both). These associations are somewhat
stronger than those between parental work status (0.24-0.30) and attainment. It should be noted
that these associations do not control for the impact of other measures, such as parental
qualifications and SES.
Table B6: Associations between salary, work status and child attainment
|
Pre-reading (standardised) |
Language (standardised)______ | |
|
Total Parent Salary |
0.37** |
0.37** |
|
Parental Work Status_________ |
0.24** |
0.30** |
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 levels
The multilevel estimates allow the calculation of effect sizes for salary categories, while
controlling for the influence of other relevant factors such as birth weight, parent highest SES,
mothers qualification levels, aspects of the home learning environment etc. For the purposes of
this paper we report the results of the variables of specific interest in relation to the effect sizes
for the duration of pre-school (see Table B6). The method of calculating these is detailed in
Appendix B of EPPE Technical Paper 8a.
The results in Table B7 show that parental salary is more closely related to young children’s pre-
reading than their language development. Furthermore, it can be seen that there are only
significant differences in attainment between the no salary group and those on higher joint
incomes (the band £37500-£66000 and the band £67500 plus). The effect size is moderate to
large for the highest salary level for pre-reading. For language the positive impact of longer
duration is more noticeable.
75