Parents' socioeconomic status and children's academic ... - Nova

3 Background of the project and data
analysis
3.1 Background of the project
The project “Children’s level of living – the impact of family incomes”
(Barns levekår – betydningen av familiens inntekt) is carried out by
Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), and financed by The Norwegian
Women's Public Health Association (Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening,
N.K.S.). It is a large-scale study in Norway that investigates the living
standards of children living under the income threshold; using children (as
well as their parents) as informants and the unit of analysis (Sandbæk 2008).
The project started in 2000, with the aim of studying the relationship
between family income and everyday life of children. The focus is on families
with low income: what does it mean for a child to grow up in a low-income
family? How does the child experience living in a household with an
aggregated income clearly below the average national income in Norway
(Sandbæk and Sture 2003)?
This project is a longitudinal study in which data were collected at three
points in time over a seven-year period. The third round of data collection is
in progress (2009), while the first was in 2003 and the second in 2006.
Statistics Norway (SSB) is responsible for sampling and data collection.
Sampling was based on register data for household incomes for the year
2000. The sample is composed of two groups:
1. The case group, which is a sample of children who lived in families
with aggregated incomes per consumption unit below the poverty
threshold (60 per cent of the contemporary median income).
2. The control group, which is a smaller representative sample that covers
children living in all income categories (for detailed information on
sampling and data collection, see the documentation report ‘Barns
levekår i lavinntektsfamilier’ (Flåte 2004).
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