False claims about social mobility risk demotivating youngsters
from poorer backgrounds and are leading to damaging policies to
rectify problems that do not exist, a new Civitas report shows
today.
In 'Social Mobility Truths', sociologist Peter Saunders debunks
claims that the UK’s social mobility rate is very low, that very
few children from working class backgrounds succeed in landing
good jobs, and that progress has gone into reverse in recent
decades.
He demonstrates instead how movement up and down the social class
ladder is widespread, and that the main influences on where
people end up in life are talent and hard work – not the class
they were born into.
Among 24 ‘truths’ about social mobility, he documents how:
- Social mobility is the norm, not the exception. It is more
unusual today for somebody to remain in the social class they
were born into than to move out of it, either up or down. Some
65 per cent of people to working class parents have moved up in
social class, while 40 per cent of those born to
professional-managerial parents have moved down.
- Social mobility has not been in decline. There is less
movement into the middle class now than there was in the second
half of the twentieth century but that is because there was a
rapid expansion of the white-collar middle-class jobs during
that period. In fact, fluidity between social classes increased
between the 1980s and 1990s and then remained at this level
during the first decade of this century.
- Britain’s social mobility rate is no worse than the
European average and better than that of many other advanced
nations. The OECD ranks the UK ninth out of 30 countries on the
extent to which children’s educational attainment is
independent of their parents’ socio-economic status and in the
middle of the rankings the probability of a child attending
university if their parents didn’t. A recent survey of thirty
European countries found the UK to be one of a cluster with the
highest absolute mobility, and one of the most fluid in terms
of relative mobility.
- Class background is only a small part of the explanation
for why some individuals achieve a higher occupational grade
than others. Once qualifications, cognitive ability and
motivation are taken into account, class origins and good
parenting are relatively small influences on class
destination.
Peter Saunders, emeritus professor of sociology at Sussex
University, said:
‘The failure of our politicians to grasp the truth about social
mobility is resulting in damaging policies designed to rectify
problems we do not have. Our top universities are not biased
against working class applicants, for example; nor do they
unfairly favour those educated at private schools. Imposition of
targets and quotas is undermining what is currently a
meritocratic system.
‘The repeated false claims of politicians threaten to demotivate
youngsters by convincing them the opportunities are all closed
off, when in fact, for those who are bright and motivated, there
is little to hold them back. This is the message our political
leaders should be sharing with young people.
‘When we start to dig into the evidence on social mobility, it
becomes clear that Britain is a lot more meritocratic than our
political leaders seem to think it is. “Background and birth” are
not the key factors shaping our lives; “aspiration and ability”
are already the principal determinants of educational and
occupational success.’
Read the full text: Social
Mobility Truths
