Overall, disadvantaged pupils tended to have more spells of absence than other pupils in Year 6. For example, while around 40% of non-disadvantaged pupils were off six times or more, this was true for 60% of disadvantaged pupils.
This relationship still exists, though is less pronounced, when we look at pupils with similar rates of absence. Among those who missed 5-6% of sessions in Year 6, around 66% of non-disadvantaged pupils were off six or more times compared with 75% of disadvantaged pupils.
So disadvantaged pupils had higher absence rates america rcs data than their peers in Year 6, and they also tended to be off more frequently. But how much did each of these factors contribute to the observed difference in Year 7 absence rates?
To find out, we decompose[2] the difference in Year 7 absence rates between disadvantaged pupils and their peers into the following components:
One related to disadvantaged pupils having had higher absence rates in Year 6,
One related to disadvantaged pupils having had more spells of absence in Year 6, and
One not related to either of those things.
Doing this tells us that around two thirds of the difference is related to differences in Year 6 absence rates and numbers of spells, with the remaining third not related to either.