In October 1999, the working families’ tax credit (WFTC) replaced family credit as the main package of in-work support for families with children. Among a range of stated aims, the WFTC is intended to ‘... improve work incentives, encouraging people without work to move into employment’....

We evaluate the effects of undergoing any early education (before the compulsory starting age of 5) and of pre-school on a cohort of British children born in 1958. In contrast to most available studies, we are able to assess whether any effects on cognition and socialisation are long-lasting, as...

This paper uses the Millennium Cohort Study to look at ethnic differences in birth outcomes for a cohort of English children born in 2000 and 2001. There is an increasingly large literature showing that longer gestation and higher birthweight are positively associated with cognitive and...

In Australia, as in most industrialised countries, there has been a dramatic increase in unemployment rates over the last three decades. The teenage labour market, in particular, has undergone significant structural changes which have resulted in large increases in the rate of unemployment among...