Se publica hoy en Inglaterra, y la prensa inglesa comenta, un nuevo infome (el tercero) del estudio sobre la cohorte del milenio, que realiza el Centre for Longitudinal Studies del Institute of Education, University of London, el cual busca entender el progreso de los niños nacidos con el nuevo siglo, esto es, a partir del año 2000.

Los resultados publicados en el último infome, según comenta The Guardian (ver texto más abajo), muestran la vigencia, también en estos tiempos, de los condicionantes de clase social sobre el desarrollo de los niños:

— 3 de cada diez niños nacidos en el Milenio nacen en condiciones de pobreza;
— Los hijos de familias cuyos padres que no tienen una calificación laboral muestran un rezago de un año en su vocabulario al momento de entrar a la escuela;
— Niños de padres con altos niveles de educación y de familias con padres que trabajan exhiben mayores destrezas cognitivas y presentan menos problemas de comportamiento;
— Los niños de familias de menores recursos poseen condiciones generales de salud muy inferiores a sus pares de familias de altos ingresos;
— Padres más calificados desarrollan en mayor número las sigueintes actividades con sus hijos: lectura, contar cuentos no apoyados en un texto, dibujo y hacer objetos, deportes, juegos fuera del hogar.

Bajar el Informe completo aquí 2,25 MB

Entrevista a Heather Joshi, directora del Informe: (acceso al audio, aquí).

Comentario editorial del diario The Guardian a continuación.

The broken society has been replaced by the broke society in the headlines, but there are still plenty of policymakers, not least at Tory headquarters, drafting manifesto pledges for mending it. Today’s report from the Millennium Cohort Study, the third in a series studying more than 15,000 children born in the first school year of the century, will provide them with a feast of statistics, not all of which substantiate the “feral children” and “barbarian estates” that crowd the imaginations of some on the right. For they show that the great majority of families, in every part of the United Kingdom, feel their children are growing up in a safe environment, attend the school of their choice and are happy with their lives. The catch is that the statistics were assembled in 2006, at the peak of the good times; without hard choices now, the next in this triennial series will not make such optimistic reading.

Today’s survey is a high-definition picture of Tony Blair’s society. The overall impression is prosperous, but there is a mass of fine detail that confirms the central message of other surveys – that class remains the dominant influence on a child’s chances. The wealthiest fifth have an income six times greater than those at the bottom. A third of children born since 2000 have experienced poverty. And the advantages and disadvantages that these figures imply are almost exactly mirrored in the life chances of the next generation. From the income, the educational achievements and the age of parents, it remains possible to deduce with depressing accuracy the outlook for their children. Although it is far from universally true, to be poor is to be more likely to be a young single parent, prone to illness – nearly half of all mothers under 30 had been diagnosed as depressed or anxious by the time their child was five – and under qualified for work. The right will interpret this as confirmation of their analysis of a broken society that might be patched up by, say, incentivising marriage. But young parenthood, it is clear from these statistics, is first of all a symptom of poverty and only later a cause.

As recession starts to bite, tackling poverty must get the same attention as restoring financial stability. If hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money is there for the banks then there must also be cash there for people who rely on benefits and who risk further marginalisation as job opportunities disappear and welfare reform designed for more prosperous times comes into effect. This month’s inflation figures, which dictate benefit uprating, fail to reflect the real rise in living costs for the poorest, the cost of food and fuel. Without action now, the next Millennium Cohort Survey will be bleak reading indeed.

How to give your child a better start in life: delay parenthood
Offspring of young mothers more likely to face health and educational problems

The children of young, poorly educated mothers are more likely to face health and educational problems before they start school, according to a study which suggests that delaying parenthood to get the best qualifications and a career first gives children a better start in life.

Polly Curtis, education editor The Guardian, Friday October 17 2008

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 15,000 families whose first child was born at the turn of the 21st century, presents an intimate portrait of family life. Half of parents in the UK admit to smacking their child, a third have bribed them and three in 10 children reach the age of five living in poverty.

Children whose parents have no qualifications are a year behind in their vocabulary by the time they start school. At five, boys are on average two months behind their female classmates, a gap which will widen at every step of their education.

“Children with highly educated parents, and from families with two working parents, display higher cognitive ability and appear to have fewer behaviour problems,” the Millennium Cohort Study says.

Heather Joshi, the Institute of Education director of the report, said: “Parents who are well educated are better off: better housing, live in nicer places and are older. The most disadvantaged families have no resident father, the mother has no education and she is younger. Waiting until 30 to have children seems to be associated with a lot of benefits for the family.”

The report says half of parents have smacked their five-year-old, 60% tell their child off every day and a third of parents use bribes. Only 3% of mothers said they never shouted at their children. Mothers under 30 were twice as likely as those over 30 to shout at their children every day. Working mothers were also slightly more likely to shout at their children regularly.

Nearly two-thirds of parents send their misbehaving child to a naughty chair or step, or their bedroom. Many children do not go to bed at a regular time. In England, 64% of children have a fixed weekday bedtime, compared with 59% in Wales.

Parents are more interested in a school’s reputation, anti-bullying policy and class sizes than they are in raw school test scores. Parents also want to know whether schools will cater for their religious needs. Only 55% of mothers would not mind their child attending a school where half the children were of another race. Some 40% of mothers had been diagnosed with depression at some point, rising to 50% among mothers under the age of 30.

One in five of the millennium babies had become either overweight or obese by the time they started school. The report says: “Poor children fare substantially worse than others in terms of both their reported level of general health, and specific conditions. Of the conditions examined, eczema and bedwetting are the only ones which are actually less likely to affect poor children.”

Boys fared worse than girls when it came to speech problems and bedwetting, but girls were more likely to be overweight or obese than boys at the age of five. There was a high correlation between family obesity and the number of hours of TV they watched.

Some 69% of fathers say they are better than average or very good fathers, while only 60% of mothers share this level of confidence in their skills as a mother.

Parents were asked what activities they did with their children, including reading, telling stories not from a book, musical activities, drawing, painting or making things, sports in the park, toys at home or playing outdoors.

Parents with higher qualifications did more of all of these things, in particular reading. However, they did fewer musical activities and visits to the park or playground.

Less than two-thirds of the children are living with their married natural parents when they enter school. Some 63% live in “traditional” family groups – with their married mother and father – at age five.

Fathers feel less satisfied than mothers about the amount of time they spent with their children.