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Children from disadvantaged backgrounds often face challenges early on that can affect their entire lives. However, research suggests that early support can significantly change these outcomes and provide a superior return on investment.
For example, US-based research shows that providing financial support to families during pregnancy and early childhood improves adult health, increases educational attainment, promotes economic independence, and increases social care and It has been shown that the interaction of This, in turn, could lead to lower public spending on health care, benefits and social security, and higher income tax revenues.
If a similar pattern were to exist in the UK, there would be clear policy implications, with some public spending potentially being essentially ‘self-financing’. But I don’t know if this is the case. We also know that there are many policy options when it comes to families with young children. Our aim is to understand where limited resources can be targeted to ensure the best outcomes for children in the long term.
We want to estimate the broad economic benefits of policies that change incomes for families with young children and present this technical analysis in an easy-to-understand way. By understanding the true costs and benefits of childhood and beyond, we aim to guide policy debates toward effective long-term investments.
We plan to start small, building on rigorous research into the causal relationships between five UK policies that impact household income during pregnancy and early childhood. We then use the best available estimates to model broader economic benefits, from potential medical cost savings to future revenues.
Finally, we create an interactive online tool to share our analysis and encourage users to explore our methodology, discuss hypotheses, and explore uncertainties.
We view this project as a “proof of concept.” If our analysis proves useful, we may later extend it beyond tax and transfer policies to other areas of early spending. For example, in the future this could help weigh the relative long-term benefits of providing more generous child support or financial support.
Ultimately, we hope that this transparent approach can inform tough policy trade-offs about where to target investments to effectively reduce inequality.
We provide extensive consulting on both analytical methods and how to make the final product as useful as possible. If you would like to share your thoughts or would like to learn more, please contact us below.[email protected].
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