CLS presents at Parenting UK annual conference

Dr Liz Jones, Research Officer for the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), will be speaking at the Parenting UK Annual Conference about the effects of prolonged poverty on child outcomes on November 15.

The charity’s 2012 conference, Parenting and the recession – exploring how economic disadvantage affects parenting style and child outcomes, brings together leading thinkers from government, academia and the charitable sector. It is being held at the MWB conference centre in London.

The MCS is an invaluable resource for investigating the long-term effects on poverty on children, as it contains a wealth of information on family income, circumstances and background, as well as various measures of children’s cognitive and behavioural development. This information has been collected at different stages of the children’s lives – ages 9 months, 3, 5, 7 and now 11 years – allowing researchers to determine not only the long-term effects of poverty, but whether the timing and duration of poverty makes a difference.

Several studies based on MCS data have shown that being poor at any age leads to poorer outcomes, even when controlling for other factors. But as Liz will discuss, it’s early and persistent poverty that are the most detrimental to children’s development.

Other speakers include Dr Sam Royston of the Children’s Society, Rhian Beynon of Family Action, and Key Note Speaker, the Rt Hon Frank Field MP, who will present his plans to pilot the recommendations in his independent review on poverty and life chances for children in the UK.

The conference will look at the challenges facing parents in a recession, and practical ways to reduce the impact of economic struggle on parenting style.

For further information and booking:

Visit the Parenting UK website

Related papers

Persistent poverty and cognitive development: Evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study by Andy Dickerson and Gurleen Popli

About the Millennium Cohort Study

The MCS follows the lives of around 19,000 children born in the UK in 2000-01. It covers such diverse topics as parenting, childcare, school choice, child behaviour and cognitive development, child and parental health, parents’ employment and education, income and poverty, housing, neighbourhood and residential mobility, and social capital and ethnicity. Read more about the MCS.