In this paper we consider whether certain countries are particularly adept (or particularly poor) at getting children from disadvantaged homes to study for a bachelor’s degree. A series of university access models are estimated for four English speaking countries (England, Canada,...

Social mobility has emerged as one of the key academic and political topics in Britain over the last decade. Although economists and sociologists disagree on whether mobility has increased or decreased, and if this is a bigger issue in the UK than other developed countries, both groups recognise...

Each year more than 300,000 individuals leave Great Britain to start a new life overseas. Indeed, recent estimates suggest that up to 4.7 million British nationals now live abroad. Yet, in contrast to the substantial literature on the economic and social welfare of immigrants into Great Britain,...

A number of studies have explored the link between family background and children's achievement in a cross-national context. A common finding is that there is a stronger association in England than other parts of the developed world. Rather less attention has been paid, however, to England's...

The link between family background and labour market outcomes is an issue of great academic, social and political concern. It is frequently claimed that such intergenerational associations are stronger in Britain than other countries. But is this really true? I investigate this issue by...

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are two highly respected studies of school pupils’ academic achievement. English policymakers have been disappointed with school children’s performance on these tests,...

The international surveys of pupil achievement – PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS – have been widely used to compare socioeconomic gradients in children’s cognitive abilities across countries. Socioeconomic status is typically measured drawing on children’s reports of family or...

A small group of high-performing East Asian economies dominate the top of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. This has caught the attention of Western policymakers, who want to know why East Asian children obtain such high PISA scores, and what can be done to...

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are two highly respected cross-national studies of pupil achievement. These have been specifically designed to study how different countries' educational systems are...

Academics and policymakers have shown great interest in cross-national comparisons of intergenerational earnings mobility. However, producing consistent and comparable estimates of earnings mobility is not a trivial task. In most countries researchers are unable to observe earnings information...