Despite Australia's egalitarian traditions, a long-term study of people born in 1990 has found that social and economic disadvantage is often inherited, passed from parents to children.

Researchers with the Brotherhood of St Laurence have followed 140 students from two inner city suburbs in Melbourne from birth to the age of 18, tracking their personal and academic progress in a study called Life Chances.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the latest enstallment of the study found that children living in low-income households struggled to achieve the same results as children raised in middle and high-income families. The study also found that costs of education were a greater barrier to learning than policy makers appear to admit.

But while Life Chances reinforced much of what is known about poverty and disadvantage, it also uncovered some surprising results that suggest that people from any background can realise their dreams.