According to a new study, scientists have found that children who have higher math and reading ability in the early years of their lives, get better jobs and have higher income in adulthood.
According to a new study, children that have stronger math and reading abilities before the age of 7 are known to get better jobs and have a higher income in adulthood. It has been said that educational standards have a direct impact on a child's life. Investigating this belief, psychological scientists Stuart Ritchie and Timothy Bates of the University of Edinburgh conducted a study to see if early math and reading abilities have an impact on a child's life outside the classroom.
"We wanted to test whether being better at math or reading in childhood would be linked with a rise through the social ranks: a better job, better housing, and higher income as an adult," the scientists said.
The study was conducted on data collected from the National Child Development Study that included information on 17,000 people in England, Scotland, and Wales over a span of about 50 years.
Researchers found that a person's math and reading abilities at the age of 7 were directly linked to what their social class would be at the age of 35. The people who had higher math and reading abilities were found to have better jobs, better housing facilities and higher income by the time they were 35 years old.
"These findings imply that basic childhood skills, independent of how smart you are, how long you stay in school, or the social class you started off in, will be important throughout your life," the scientists said.
According to researchers of the study, genes may explain the long term association between math and reading abilities and social status.
"Genes underlie many of the differences among children on all the variables we've looked at here," they wrote. "The genetically-controlled study using twins that we're conducting now should allow us to separate out genetic and environmental effects."
The findings of the study are published in an online journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Psychological Science.
