Coronavirus will reduce earning potential of today’s children for next 50 years, Royal Society predicts

For half a century, around a quarter of the country’s workforce will have lower skills as a result of the school they missed out on

 Students who are already at the bottom of their class and struggling with school are more likely to have fallen behind during lockdown
 Students who are already at the bottom of their class and struggling with school are more likely to have fallen behind during lockdown

Coronavirus will reduce the earning potential of today’s children for the next 50 years, the Royal Society has predicted.

For half a century after the mid-2030s, around a quarter of the country’s workforce will have lower skills as a result of the school they missed out on during lockdown, according to a new report.

Schools were ordered to close on March 20, meaning that most children missed out of 12 weeks of school which is around a third of the academic year. 

 “A huge base of evidence shows that earnings depend on skills, and lower skills means lower earnings,” the report said.

 “For example, if a student misses a third of a school year, and each school year brings roughly a 10 per cent return, earnings potential is likely to be permanently lower by around 3 per cent a year.”

 Students who are already at the bottom of their class and struggling with school are more likely to have fallen behind during lockdown.

 These children are more likely to go on to earn low salaries when then finish school, and so will face a “significantly higher risk of poverty”, the researchers explained. 

 The report, which was written by a multi-disciplinary group of economists and statisticians as well as health and education experts, examined the long-term ramifications of school closures during lockdown.

Researchers analysed the effects of teacher strikes in Argentina where it was found that the average strike incidence in primary school reduces earnings in mid-life for women by 1.9 per cent and for men by 3.2 per cent.

“13 cohorts of students have been affected by the lockdown, so from the mid-2030s for the 50 years following that, around a quarter of the entire workforce will have lower skills, with a consequently lower growth rate,” researchers found. “The present value of such a fall in the growth rate is measured in billions not millions.”

Another consequence of lost skills from closed schools is a greater risk of poverty, researchers said.

They cited previous research from the Office for National Statistics showing that people with a low level of educational attainment are almost five times as likely to be in poverty now as those with a high level of education.

Simon Burgess, a professor of economics at Bristol University and lead author on the report, said: “We know how damaging it is for children to miss out on school.

“While it is still early days, there has been little evidence of surges in infection rates in countries that have opened up their schools, including countries that have fully reopened.  While we have to do all we can to reduce the risk of transmission, we do need to get our children back to school.”

The Royal Society’s report assessed the difficulties of balancing the huge costs to pupils and parents of school closures against the need to minimise the risk of Covid-19 infection of children, teachers and the wider community.

It concludes that the risk of keeping schools open is fairly limited compared to other activities, while the evidence on the negative impact of closing schools is “considerable and robust”.

Research published last month found that more than two million children did virtually no schoolwork during the lockdown.

Academics at University College London's Institute of Education found that one in five pupils in the UK – equating to around 2.3 million children – either did no home learning at all or less than one hour a day.

Researchers analysed the findings of a study in which over 4,500 British households were asked about their children's schoolwork during the second half of April.

They found that children spent an average of 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork. This is around half the amount suggested by previous research, which implies that "learning losses are much greater than feared", academics said.

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