WISPPRH Hosts Early Interventions and Human Capital Workshop

On 24 October 2025, the Women in Social and Public Policy Research Hub (WISPPRH) Director Professor Almudena Sevilla and Academic Program Director Christine Ho organised the Early Interventions and Human Capital workshop, bringing together leading scholars from across Europe, Asia, and North America to explore how investments in the earliest stages of life shape health, learning, and long-term capabilities.

The presentations traced critical pathways from pregnancy through early childhood, offering compelling evidence on when and how interventions matter most. Research on maternal general knowledge acquisition revealed intergenerational health benefits, while work on environmental health showed how electric vehicle adoption improves infant outcomes through cleaner air. Evidence on healthcare quality demonstrated the lasting importance of good nurses in shaping early development, and new findings on universal cash transfers highlighted how the timing of support during pregnancy fundamentally affects birth outcomes and maternal behaviours. The workshop also featured groundbreaking long-term evidence from welfare reform experiments showing how work and financial assistance policies shape children’s trajectories, and examined how intimate partner violence disrupts human capital formation.

Featuring presentations from distinguished scholars, including Hilary Hoynes (UC Berkeley), Miriam Wüst (Copenhagen), and others, with expert discussants from leading UK institutions, the workshop demonstrated how rigorous causal identification combined with policy relevance can inform more effective early intervention design. By convening economists, demographers, and policy researchers across career stages and continents, Sevilla and Ho created a platform showcasing WISPPRH’s role in advancing evidence-based approaches to children’s development and family policy.