The Government has today announced more details on its new Tax Free Childcare scheme and the way in which childcare will be supported in Universal Credit. The announcement means that the planned system will be significantly more generous than initially envisaged, providing support to children aged up to 12 straight away, will provide a higher level of support, and will provide more generous support for childcare in Universal Credit. Yet the Treasury has not increased its estimate of the total cost, as it has revised down considerably its estimate of how many families will benefit.
In this paper we examine the link between wage inequality and consumption inequality using a life cycle model that incorporates household consumption and family labor supply decisions.
This report considers the extent to which differences in parental characteristics explain gaps in cognitive and socio-emotional development between children at older ages.
This study combined a literature review with secondary analysis to draw together good quality evidence on the subject of informal childcare, and to highlight the gaps in that evidence.
Using a simple decomposition analysis, we show that around two thirds of the socio-economic gap in attainment at age 16 can be accounted for by long-run family background characteristics and prior ability, suggesting that circumstances and investments made considerably earlier in the child's life explain the majority of the gap in test scores between young people from rich and poor families.
This report analyses the distribution of couple penalties and premiums in the tax and benefit system using a large, statistically representative sample of households.
Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour party conference confirmed that, if it wins the general election, the Government will provide free early education and childcare places for 2 year old children in low-income families in England by 2015, to be funded by scrapping the tax break on employer-provided childcare vouchers. Who will win and lose from this change, and what does it tell us about the Government's priorities?
