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The household in which you are raised underpins life-outcomes across multiple domains, as children are profoundly influenced by their parents or caregivers. Significantly, intergenerational transfer plays a role in educational attainment, occupational status and income (Thomassen et al., 2024) . Given that a child has no responsibility for the social condition in which they are raised, it is imperative that policy is driven towards equal opportunities for every individual to combat harmful cycles of inter-generation transmission of disadvantage.
Hence, this project has been commissioned and funded by the Department for the Economy to assist in one of their key policy areas, Regional Balance. This policy area highlights the need to take action to address geographical disparities to re-balance the regional economy and promote social cohesion. Their goal is to ensure that everyone irrespective of where they live, has the same opportunities to make a living (Department for the Economy, 2025a).
Social mobility has been defined as, “the link between a person’s occupation or income and the occupation or income of their parents” (Longley et al., 2021:2) . A child may experience ‘upward mobility’ if their level of income, or highest level of qualification is higher than that of their parents. This concept is embedded in intergenerational transmission of deprivation, whereby children grow up in disadvantaged households, and in their adulthood still live in a deprived household. This individual can be classified as having ‘low social mobility’. Hence, social mobility has been referred to as the ‘long shadow of deprivation’ by the Social Mobility Commission (Social Mobility Commission, 2020).
The transfer of disadvantage contributes to the persistence of spatial deprivation. Lloyd’s (2022) analysis of Belfast’s enduring deprivation patterns underscores how long‑term unemployment and spatially concentrated disadvantage is reproduced across generations. The intergenerational transmission of disadvantage shapes life outcomes across multiple dimensions, with residents of persistently deprived neighbourhoods exhibiting markedly poorer health than those living in more advantaged areas (Exeter et al., 2011) .
Whilst poverty and deprivation are two terms used interchangeably, this project explores deprivation, referring to the lack of any kind of resource, unlike poverty which distinctly relates to income (Ministry of Housing, 2019) .
In using the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) data between 1991 and 2021, the extent to which neighbourhood/place and the intergenerational transmission of deprivation impact life outcomes will be explored. This research will focus specifically on Belfast, allowing for comparative analysis between Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland.
