10 Family Income
One half of the world knows not how the other half lives.— Joseph Hall, Holy Observations (1607)Finally we return to childhood. How does our early expe-
rience determine our emotional well- being as a child? And
how does it affect the other key dimensions of our devel-
opment as children— our behavior and our intellectual
performance?
To answer these questions we turn to a remarkable sur-
vey that has followed children much more frequently and
in more detail than most other surveys in the world. This
is the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
(ALSPAC). This survey attempted to cover all children born
in and around Bristol (a city of nearly half a million peo-
ple) and Bath, between April 1991 and December 1992. It
achieved about 70% of the total, though there was some sub-
sequent attrition and nonresponse to individual questions.^1
The survey enables us to study closely the effects of very
many childhood influences, all of which are included in the
online tables for Part II. But in what follows we focus on five
major issues where public policy can have a major impact.
These are the effects of
- child poverty
- parents working
- parenting and parents’ mental health
- conflict in the family, and
- the quality of schooling.