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Sarah Cattan

Sarah Cattan

Associate Director

CV
Alternative webpage
ORCID
0000-0001-7339-7051
Education

PhD Economics, University of Chicago, 2012

MA Economics, University of Chicago, 2007

BA Economics and Political Science (Magna Cum Laude), Columbia University, 2005

Sarah is an Associate Director in the Education and Skills sector. She joined the IFS in 2012 and currently holds a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to study child development and household behaviour in developed and developing countries. Sarah’s research interests include the origins of inequality and the role of human capital played in driving inequalities within and across generations. In the recent past, she has conducted projects looking at the determinants of early childhood development, the impact of early childhood and education policies, and the gender wage gap.

Academic outputs

IFS Working Paper W21/25
The health impacts of universal early childhood interventions: evidence from Sure Start
This paper evaluates the short- and medium-term health impacts of offering families with children under 5 universal access to centres providing childcare, health services, parenting support and parental job assistance.
IFS Working Paper W21/17
The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown
This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of labour among parents of school-aged children in two-parent opposite-gender families.

Reports and comment

Report
Home learning experiences through the COVID-19 pandemic
In this report, we examine how the learning experiences of English school children evolved over the course of the first 12 months of disruption, from the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2020 until the end of the second period of school closures in March 2021.
Briefing note
The health impacts of Sure Start
Over the last two decades, Sure Start Children’s Centres (and their predecessors, Sure Start Local Programmes) have been one of the most important policy programmes in the early years in England. These centres operate as ‘one-stop shops’ for families with children under 5, bringing together a ...

Presentations

Presentation
Early years inequalities in the wake of the pandemic
There are important inequalities in the development of children well before they start school. By forcing nurseries to close and dramatically altering the lives of most families with young children, the pandemic may have exacerbated existing inequalities and possibly created new ones.
Presentation
Encouraging Girls’ Engagement With And Uptake Of Maths And Physics At A-Level
Girls are aware of the benefits of STEM careers, but fear they are male-dominated.