Inequalities in late adolescents’ educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

While the health risks of Covid-19 for young people are low, they have borne a heavy cost of the pandemic through intense disruption to their education and social lives. These effects have not been experienced equally across social and demographic groups. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 4,000 young people in England linked to their education records, we study inequalities in late adolescents’ experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic. We find particularly stark inequalities by socio-economic status, with those from poorer families facing disadvantage on multiple fronts, particularly in their experiences of home learning, returning to school, and exam cancellations compared to their more advantaged peers. Gender and ethnic inequalities were more mixed, though young females reported significantly lower wellbeing scores than males. This evidence suggests that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, meaning policymakers concerned with increasing equity and social mobility now face an even bigger task than before.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• socio-economic status
• gender
• ethnicity
• wellbeing
• inequality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Accounting for initial nonresponse to the 2019 survey, yields a net response rate of 32%.

2. See https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/platform/wemwbs/using/howto/ and https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/platform/wemwbs/using/howto/swemwbs_raw_score_to_metric_score_conversion_table.pdf for how this has been derived.

3. General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams are taken by all pupils aged 15/16 in England. Although education is compulsory to age 18, post-16 education can take a number of forms including academic or vocational pathways.

4. For years 12–15 this is Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 2 scores from the linked NPD data, while for years 9–11 this is Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 1 scores from the same source.

5. Note that it may be surprising that we do not have more baseline measures available from the initial survey from which this is a re-contact study. However, the initial survey was primarily focussed on science education and, so, contains few variables that appeared to be appropriate covariates for our modelling.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by UK Research and Innovation as part of its COVID-19 rapid response fund through the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/V013017/1] “Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on young peoples’ learning, motivation, wellbeing, and aspirations using a representative probability panel”.

Notes on contributors

Jake Anders

Dr Jake Anders is Associate Professor, Deputy Director in the UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO), and Principal Investigator of the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities study (COSMO). Jake’s research focuses on better understanding the causes and consequences of educational inequalities, evaluating policies and programmes aiming to reduce these inequalities, and how best to do this evaluation.

Lindsey Macmillan

Professor Lindsey Macmillan is Director of the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) and a Professor of Economics. Her research considers how inequalities in education and skills contribute to the transmission of incomes and work across generations.

Patrick Sturgis

Professor Patrick Sturgis is Professor of Quantitative Social Science and Head of the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on the design and analysis of sample surveys, public opinion and political behaviour, and social mobility.

Gill Wyness

Professor Gill Wyness is Professor of Economics and Deputy Director in the UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO). Gill’s research focuses on inequalities in university participation and attainment, and the drivers of it – including higher education finance, information advice and guidance, and school factors.