Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*

Alison Andrew; Sarah Cattan; Monica Costa Dias; Christine Farquharson; Lucy Kraftman; Sonya Krutikova; Angus Phimister; Almudena Sevilla

doi:10.1111/1475-5890.12240

Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*

Alison Andrew^*, Sarah Cattan, Monica Costa Dias, Christine Farquharson, Lucy Kraftman, Sonya Krutikova, Angus Phimister, Almudena Sevilla

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

224 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper combines novel data on the time use, home-learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time Use Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown, and to gauge the extent to which changes in time use and learning practices during this period are likely to reinforce the already large gaps in educational attainment between children from poorer and better-off families. We find considerable heterogeneity in children's learning experiences – amount of time spent learning, activities undertaken during this time and availability of resources to support learning. Concerningly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this heterogeneity is strongly associated with family income and in some instances more so than before lockdown. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that any impacts of inequalities in time spent learning between poorer and richer children are likely to be compounded by inequalities not only in learning resources available at home, but also in those provided by schools.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	653-683
Number of pages	31
Journal	Fiscal Studies
Volume	41
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.12240
Publication status	Published - 30 Nov 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the Nuffield Foundation for funding this work (grant EDO/FR‐000022584). Almudena Sevilla thanks the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC‐2017‐COG for funding her time through the PARENTIME project. Co‐funding from the ESRC‐funded Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (ES/M010147/1) and by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme on Dynamics of Inequality across the Life‐Course (Dial, project file number 462‐16‐090) is gratefully acknowledged by IFS researchers. This work has been supported by the Nuffield Foundation via the IFS Deaton Review, ‘Inequality in the Twenty‐First Century’ (reference WEL/43603). The authors are grateful for valuable comments from Abi Adams‐Prassl, Carl Emmerson, Paul Johnson and Matthias Parey. The usual disclaimer applies.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Fiscal Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. on behalf of Institute for Fiscal Studies

Research Groups and Themes

ECON CEPS Education
ECON Applied Economics
Covid19

Keywords

COVID-19
education
home learning
inequality

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title = "Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*",

abstract = "This paper combines novel data on the time use, home-learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time Use Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown, and to gauge the extent to which changes in time use and learning practices during this period are likely to reinforce the already large gaps in educational attainment between children from poorer and better-off families. We find considerable heterogeneity in children's learning experiences – amount of time spent learning, activities undertaken during this time and availability of resources to support learning. Concerningly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this heterogeneity is strongly associated with family income and in some instances more so than before lockdown. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that any impacts of inequalities in time spent learning between poorer and richer children are likely to be compounded by inequalities not only in learning resources available at home, but also in those provided by schools.",

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Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

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