In 1969, we published Born to Fail?, a study of a group of 11 year-olds living in Great Britain that revealed that one in seven were growing up in poverty.
Nearly 50 years on, Greater Expectations: raising aspirations for our children uses the 12 key indicators established by Born to Fail? to determine the extent to which inequality has changed.
Key findings:
Greater Expectations shows that far from improving over time, the situation today appears to be no better than it was nearly five decades ago.
It found that:
- The number of children in poverty has increased by 1.5 million and children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be obese, suffer accidental injury and fail to do well in their GSCEs.
- However, if the UK were doing as well for our children as the best industrialised nations, almost one million children would not be living in poverty, 172 fewer children would die each year due to unintentional injury, more young people would be in education and training and fewer young children would be growing up in poor environmental conditions.