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The post-2015 agenda calls for a‘data revolution in development’and recognises that statistical capacity amongst the workforce is a prerequisite for achieving it. Universities have a critical role to play in building this capacity. This paper reports insights from in-depth interviews with development professionals in Malta, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom about current and future data skills needs.It presents recommendations on data skills training for aspiring development professionals informed by this evidence, with a particular focus on curriculum in social science related undergraduate programmes at universities, peer-reviewed

This article addresses the impact of economic climate, and particularly of the Great Recession, on the configuration of educational expectations among students around 14 years old. We analyze expectations regarding educational attainment conditional on school performance and compare our results across countries with varying levels of economic growth over time. We expect a changing economic environment to impact on (a) the average level of educational expectations, (b) the association between social background and expectations, and (c) the association between school grades and expectations. Using pooled data from TIMSS for the years 2003, 2007 and 2011 among 8th graders for 24 developed countries, we estimate a set of country-fixed effects and hierarchical random-slope linear regression models. Most notably, our results indicate that economic down times depress educational expectations, especially among average-performing students, and lead to a growth in educational inequalities by family background.

This chapter addresses the extent of social inequalities in contemporary Spain using a broad array of indicators. Trends in economic inequalities are firstly analysed. The risk of poverty and social exclusion are then considered because of their special relevance in the Spanish case in the context of the Great Recession. Then, changes in educational inequalities and social mobility are examined. An account of several indicators of gender differences in the labour market and in other areas, is then provided. Lastly, a discussion of social inequalities across generations is offered. These trends are compared with those in other European countries, and specificities of the Spanish case are particularly emphasized.

In this study we examine the extent to which preschool education can reduce social background differentials in learning outcomes across countries; our focus is on whether the benefits of preschool attendance for children depend on other family inputs such as parents’ education and their pedagogical involvement during early childhood. We use the 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which provides a standardized measure of reading literacy among students in 4th grade. Our sample contains data on 119,008 individuals from 28 developed countries. The presented evidence confirms that preschool is visibly beneficial in most cases, but also that benefits are lower for children who have more involved or more educated parents. Rather than complements to, parental involvement and parental education seem to be substitutes for preschool attendance in children’s skill production function. As such, preschool education reduces social inequalities in educational achievement. Yet, its equalizing potential could have been overstated in previous debates.

Objectives Recent studies suggest that some of the health benefits traditionally attributed to breastfeeding may be overstated due to selection bias problems, since typically breastfeeding is more prevalent in more resourceful households. In this paper we argue that an important antidote against selection bias consists in analyzing data from contexts in which breastfeeding is not normativised, or where it is not systematically associated to socioeconomic advantage and best parenting practices. We estimate the effect of breastfeeding on the cognitive outcomes of Chinese children. Methods We use observational data from a representative sample of children aged 10–15 from the China Family Panel Study. We estimate province fixed effect linear regression models to predict the impact of breastfeeding on test scores. Results Our paper shows that there are no advantages in the results obtained by breastfed children when compared with those who were not breastfed, regardless of the duration of breastfeeding. Conclusions Some of the cognitive benefits associated to breastfeeding can be attributed to flaws inherent to the research designs usually adopted.

This article explores the effects of the increasing educational attainment of several cohorts of women born during the first half of the twentieth century on the historical change in their fertility. With data from the 1991 Spanish Census, we focus on the reproductive trajectories of women in these cohorts based on parity progression and marriage patterns. The conclusions point to a clear negative association between education and fertility on one hand and between education and marriage on the other. Both of these relationships prove relevant to understanding changes in fertility and childlessness in the cohorts and time span considered.

This study addresses the relationship between various family forms and the level of cognitive and non-cognitive skills among 15- to 16-year-old students. We measure cognitive skills using standardized scores in mathematics; non-cognitive abilities are captured by a composite measure of internal locus of control related to mathematics. A particular focus lies on father absence although we also examine the role played by co-residence with siblings and grandparents. We use cross-nationally comparable data on students participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment’s release for 2012. By mapping inequalities by family forms across 33 developed countries, this study provides robust cross-country comparable evidence on the relationship of household structure with both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The study produces three key results: first, the absence of fathers from the household as well as co-residence with grandparents is associated with adverse outcomes for children in virtually all developed countries. Second, this is generally true in terms of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, although the disadvantage connected to both family forms is notably stronger in the former than in the latter domain. Finally, there is marked cross-national diversity in the effects associated with the presence in the household of siblings and especially grandparents which furthermore differs across the two outcomes considered.

This article investigates how changes in educational assortative mating affected the growth in earnings inequality among households in the United States between the late 1970s and early 2000s. The authors find that these changes had a small, negative effect on inequality: there would have been more inequality in earnings in the early 2000s if educational assortative mating patterns had remained as they were in the 1970s. Given the educational distribution of men and women in the United States, educational assortative mating can have only a weak impact on inequality, and educational sorting among partners is a poor proxy for sorting on earnings.

In this article, we examine the redistributive nature of public educational spending through a cross-country analysis from 1960 to 1996. Existing studies on the determinants of the extent of public funding of education tend to give for granted its progressive nature. We question this view and, assuming that the redistributive nature of public education is conditional on how expenditure is allocated between the different levels of schooling, we provide evidence on the role of the ideological nature of the party in government and of the economic position of the median voter on the configuration of this policy.En este trabajo se discute y analiza la dimensión redistributiva del gasto público en educación mediante un examen comparado de una amplia muestra de países desarrollados entre 1960 y 1996. Los estudios existentes que examinan los determinantes de la financiación pública de la educación suelen suponer que ésta tiene un carácter progresivo. En nuestro análisis se cuestiona esta visión y, partiendo del supuesto de que es la composición del gasto entre los distintos niveles de enseñanza, y no el nivel de gasto total, lo que realmente tiene consecuencias distributivas, se aporta evidencia sobre el peso de la ideología del partido en el gobierno y la posición económica del votante mediano en la configuración de esta política.

It is widely believed that the growth in women's educational attainment and their increasing labour force participation, together with educational homogamy, will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings. In this article, we use data from the United Kingdom to test that assertion. We use a new method of decomposing the change in household earnings inequality, and this allows us to identify effects associated with women's increasing educational attainment and consequential changes in their propensity to marry, in educational assortative mating and in labour-force participation. We find that changes in women's education and their behavioural consequences account for little if any of the growth in earnings inequality between households in the United Kingdom during the closing decades of the 20th century.

This article explores the effects of the increasing educational attainment of several cohorts of women living in Madrid and born during the first half of the 20th Century on the historical change of their fertility behaviour. Data from the 1991 Spanish Population Census have been used. The characteristics of this dataset enable the focus on the reproductive trajectories of women in these cohorts based on parity progression. The conclusions point to a clear negative association between education and fertility on the one hand, and between education and marriage on the other. Both of these relationships prove relevant to understand changes in fertility and infertility in the time span considered. El presente trabajo examina desde una perspectiva longitudinal la influencia del creciente nivel educativo de varias cohortes de mujeres madrileñas nacidas en la primera mitad del siglo XX en el cambio histórico de sus pautas reproductivas. Los datos que sirven de base empírica a este artículo proceden del Censo de Población y Viviendas de 1991 y hacen posible un análisis de los efectos de la educación en las trayectorias reproductivas de las mujeres de estas cohortes basado en la progresión en la paridez. Las conclusiones señalan que existe en estas cohortes de mujeres una clara relación negativa entre educación y fecundidad, por una parte, y entre educación y matrimonio, por otra, que resulta fundamental para entender los cambios en la infecundidad y la fecundidad del periodo que se analiza.