Children on benefits less educated, poorer as adults

According to Statistics Netherlands, children who grew up in a family that had to receive benefits, are less educated than their peers around their 30th birthday. Regardless of their qualifications, these children are also more likely need benefits later in life. Statistics Netherlands states that this is not a casual connection, but a correlation and it can have other causes, such as genetic predisposition and values that are inherited in educations. Slightly more than half of the children born in 1983 grew up in a home with two working parents. 30 percent grew up in a home with a working father and a mother with no private income. In 16 percent of the cases one or both of the parents were the receiver of an unemployment, disability or social assistance benefit. The educational career of the children developed most favorably when both parents were working. These children are more likely than average to be highly educated and a low education appear less often among them. A relatively low school performance is most common among children who had two parent living on benefits. 35 percent of these sons and 31 percent of the daughters have a low education. Regardless of socioeconomic status, women around the age of 30 are more likely to have a benefit as main source of income than men. On average it is about 8 percent of men and 10 percent of women. These percentages are lower when children had two working parents and significantly higher (24% for men and 27% for women) when they had two parents receiving benefits. According to Statistics Netherlands, these figures show a clear correlation between the socioeconomic position of parents and the educational career of children. A good education increases the chance of finding a job.