Early interventions are particularly effective at addressing the transmission of intergenerational inequalities.

 

The insufficient focus on families and children in public policy is contributing to the persistence of inequality and, in many contexts, its growth. This reflects a failure in the operation of rights-based frameworks and the social contract – particularly in relation to children – which ought to be corrected through effective family policies and interventions. Given that the family constitutes the fundamental, reproductive, and foundational unit of all societies – and that individuals emerge from families, while communities are formed through their aggregation – it follows that the most effective point of intervention to mitigate the intergenerational transmission of inequality is at the stage of family formation and early development. To be aligned with human and child rights frameworks, public policies should be universal, progressive, and complete. This means, at the heart of such policies are principles of nondiscrimination, the indivisibility of rights, and the commitment articulated in the preamble to the Sustainable Development Goals to ‘leave no one behind.’ Indivisibility also implies a need for multi-sectoral interoperability between benefits and services for families, recognizing that progress in one domain of family well-being – such as health – generates positive spillovers in others, including education, employment, and equality. Fortunately, this can also be fully justified based on a wealth of evidence on how to make improvements in all families’ living conditions and every child’s development. As this report has shown, current patterns of public provision fall short of these standards. Globally, there is significant underinvestment in family policy, and where policies do exist, their design and implementation often fail to recognise the child as a direct subject of the social contract, despite children’s future role as contributing members of society. Existing policy portfolios are frequently incomplete, lacking key interventions – particularly in the domains of social protection and family-oriented services – and are often introduced too late in the life course to be fully effective. Early interventions are particularly effective at addressing the transmission of intergenerational inequalities and supporting families to provide the necessary conditions for optimal child development right from the start.