More details/abstract: Using a large-scale household survey, we investigate how disparities in learning change over the primary school cycle. Even controlling for other factors, household wealth and parental schooling drive sizeable gaps in learning, increasing in magnitude over the school grades. Gender gaps also widen, although only among the poorest. In contrast to other countries, overage status is positively associated with learning early on, but its importance dissipates by later grades.

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... hile the importance of factors varies across states, household wealth predominates. The analysis highlights the importance of tackling disadvantage associated with poverty early, to avoid its effects on learning becoming entrenched. A B S T R A C T Using a large-scale household survey, we investigate how disparities in learning change over the primary school cycle. Even controlling for other factors, household wealth and parental schooling drive sizeable gaps in learning, increasing in magnitude over the school grades. Gender gaps also widen, although only among the poorest. In contrast to other countries, overage status is positively associated with learning early on, but its importance dissipates by later grades. While the importance of factors varies across states, household wealth predominates. The analysis highlights the importance of tackling disadvantage associated with poverty early, to avoid its effects on learning becoming entrenched. Framing the research: evidence on the causes of learning disparities Among wealthier countries, there is clear evidence that the early years are crucial to disparities in children's cognitive development Heckman, 2002, 2003). In the UK, on average, five yearolds from richer households are already 15 months ahead of those from poorer households in vocabulary development (Blanden and Machin, 2010) . Looking earlier on, longitudinal data from the US (Cunha et al., 2010) and UK (Jerrim and Vignoles, 2013) demonstrate that learning http://dx.