Family Size and Educational Attainment in England and Wales

In this paper, we use linked census data from England and Wales to investigate whether having a large number of siblings leads to lower educational attainment. There is a large literature suggesting that with large sibship size, parental resources will be diluted and this, in turn, will lead to lower educational attainment. Using twin births and the sex composition of the sibling group as instrumental variables, we find that the evidence of a family size effect on educational attainment is rather uncertain. Similar results are obtained when we use occupational attainment as the dependent variable. We also demonstrate the confounding of birth order and family size effects, and show that an adjusted birth order index proposed by Booth and Kee provides an effective solution to this estimation problem

Changing migration rates in England and Wales over a 40-year period: Is mobility declining?

Research using data for the United States has pointed towards a long-term pattern of falling migration rates. Similar research in England and Wales has also found declining migration rates when observing all migrants. Using the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS LS), we study the patterns of migration observed over 10-year periods for persons in 10-year birth cohorts over each intercensal period from 1971–1981 through to 2001–2011. When the sample population is considered as a whole, the results from the LS are consistent with earlier findings: There has been a decade-on-decade decline in the migration rate as observed in longitudinal data. When disaggregated by cohort, it is apparent that this decline is not always observed for young adults, but it is consistently observed for those in their 30s and older, for whom each successive cohort has a lower migration rate than the previous one and also for whom there is a steady within-cohort decline in the migration rate over time. This is observed at both short and longer distances of move. Alternative results from successive censuses looking at migration observed for single years do not appear to confirm this decline in migration, although data collection and processing issues may be part of the explanation for this finding, and it is also the case that these data may be more subject to cyclical effects

Period-cohort migration intensities in England and Wales

The ONS Longitudinal Study is a linked sample of 1.1% of the population of England and Wales, with data from censuses in 1971 through to 2011. Comparison of usual residence data allows a ten-year transition period to be observed. Close to 14,000 people exist within this sample who have been present at all census points, and have migrated (within England and Wales) in each 10-year period, 1971-81 through to 2001-11; we refer to these people as 'highly mobile'. The paper looks at regional patterns of this sub-sample, and then focuses on period-cohort comparisons. We explore the relative propensities to migrate amongst these highly mobile persons, in order to provide a relatively long-term UK set of observations to compare with findings in some other countries of a reduced propensity for internal migration

Windrush migrants in the ONS Longitudinal Study

The ONS Longitudinal Study can be used to estimate the number of Windrush migrants in ways which go beyond the methods based solely on the most recent census, or on the Labour Force Survey. CeLSIUS estimate that in 2011 there were around 1,735 Windrush children who had entered the country (aged under 16) prior to 1971, and 3,744 migrants overall, who did not hold any passport

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Marital disruption and loss of support in later life: a longitudinal study of the United Kingdom

Marital disruption (i.e. due to death, divorce or separation) at older ages is an important issue as it removes the usual primary source of help and support: a husband or wife. To date, few studies have investigated the support implications (both informal, here deWned as perceived support and social embeddedness and formal, deWned as use of domiciliary care services) of marital disruptions in later life. This issue needs addressing as widow(er)hood and divorce are increasingly occurring at older ages. Employing data from the longitudinal British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) (1991–2003) we investigated the association between marital disruption and Wrst loss of (a) perceived support and (b) at least weekly contact with at least one non-relative friend, among those aged 50 and over. We also examined Wrst use of domiciliary care services (i.e. health visitor or district nurse, home help or meals-onwheels) among those aged 70 and over. Our Wndings show that marital separation increased the odds of losing perceived support whereas widow(er)hood showed no signiWcant association among people aged 50 and over. Separation and widow(er)hood increased the odds of losing weekly contact with non-relative friends (although the odds were greater for separation) in this age group. Finally, widow(er)hood increased the odds of using domiciliary care services among respondents aged 70 and over