UK at the bottom of 'social mobility league'
Discussion
A new report on social mobility says the movement of people across social class boundaries, or from one occupational level to another, has shown remarkably little change in 30 years.
I had not realised Social mobility was so bad (after all my grandfather on one side was a railway worker and on the other a Lorry driver)
Perhaps the key problem is the education system. After all 6% of children have a far superior private education, and the catchments areas of good state schools are often considerably wealthier than the average.
Perhaps the key is that they say social mobility has not changed for 30 years, that coincides with the destruction of the grammar schools
Telegraph article below
Classic comedy sketch on lack of social mobility has the last laugh
(Filed: 30/09/2005)
It was the classic comedy sketch on social mobility.
The tall John Cleese, representing the upper class, says he looks down on the two Ronnies, who represent the middle and working classes.
Ronnie Barker says: "I look up to him (Cleese) because he is upper class and look down on him (Corbett) because he is lower class." The tiny Corbett just says: "I know my place."
The sketch was first performed in 1967 but a new report on social mobility says the movement of people across social class boundaries, or from one occupational level to another, has shown remarkably little change in 30 years.
Despite the welfare state, the expansion of universities, and the decline of the "old-school tie" in the professions and the City, a child is nearly three times more likely to go to university and then join the professional or managerial classes if his or her parents have done so.
The report, for the Office for National Statistics, follows research by the London School of Economics which said Britain appeared to have one of the worst records for social mobility in the developed world.
Entitled The Long Shadow of Childhood, the ONS report was based on a study of census records from 1971 to 2001 and included a detailed analysis of people aged 36-41 in 2001.
Nearly 60 per cent of men and 42 per cent of women with a parent in a professional or managerial job were themselves professionals or managers.
Just 27 per cent of men and 22 per cent of women whose parents were partly skilled or unskilled rose to the professional classes.
A comparison of people aged 23-36 in 2001 showed that more than two fifths (43 per cent) of men and women with a parent in a professional or managerial job went on to get a degree.
This figure dropped to 39 per cent if they were living with only one parent. Only four per cent had no qualifications.
For those with parents who had partly skilled or unskilled jobs, 14 per cent had a degree and 17 per cent had no qualifications.
A spokesman for the Sutton Trust, an education charity, said: "We are not surprised by these findings. Although there have been reforms in education, they have mainly benefited the middle classes at the expense of the less affluent."
The LSE report focused on how education affected the life chances of British children compared with those in other countries.
It put the UK and the US at the bottom of a social mobility league table of eight European and North American countries, with Norway at the top followed by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Canada.
It concluded that wealth was more clearly linked to educational attainment in Britain than in the other countries, with children from poor backgrounds trapped in the worst schools.
© Copyright of Telegraph
I had not realised Social mobility was so bad (after all my grandfather on one side was a railway worker and on the other a Lorry driver)
Perhaps the key problem is the education system. After all 6% of children have a far superior private education, and the catchments areas of good state schools are often considerably wealthier than the average.
Perhaps the key is that they say social mobility has not changed for 30 years, that coincides with the destruction of the grammar schools
Telegraph article below
Classic comedy sketch on lack of social mobility has the last laugh
(Filed: 30/09/2005)
It was the classic comedy sketch on social mobility.
The tall John Cleese, representing the upper class, says he looks down on the two Ronnies, who represent the middle and working classes.
Ronnie Barker says: "I look up to him (Cleese) because he is upper class and look down on him (Corbett) because he is lower class." The tiny Corbett just says: "I know my place."
The sketch was first performed in 1967 but a new report on social mobility says the movement of people across social class boundaries, or from one occupational level to another, has shown remarkably little change in 30 years.
Despite the welfare state, the expansion of universities, and the decline of the "old-school tie" in the professions and the City, a child is nearly three times more likely to go to university and then join the professional or managerial classes if his or her parents have done so.
The report, for the Office for National Statistics, follows research by the London School of Economics which said Britain appeared to have one of the worst records for social mobility in the developed world.
Entitled The Long Shadow of Childhood, the ONS report was based on a study of census records from 1971 to 2001 and included a detailed analysis of people aged 36-41 in 2001.
Nearly 60 per cent of men and 42 per cent of women with a parent in a professional or managerial job were themselves professionals or managers.
Just 27 per cent of men and 22 per cent of women whose parents were partly skilled or unskilled rose to the professional classes.
A comparison of people aged 23-36 in 2001 showed that more than two fifths (43 per cent) of men and women with a parent in a professional or managerial job went on to get a degree.
This figure dropped to 39 per cent if they were living with only one parent. Only four per cent had no qualifications.
For those with parents who had partly skilled or unskilled jobs, 14 per cent had a degree and 17 per cent had no qualifications.
A spokesman for the Sutton Trust, an education charity, said: "We are not surprised by these findings. Although there have been reforms in education, they have mainly benefited the middle classes at the expense of the less affluent."
The LSE report focused on how education affected the life chances of British children compared with those in other countries.
It put the UK and the US at the bottom of a social mobility league table of eight European and North American countries, with Norway at the top followed by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Canada.
It concluded that wealth was more clearly linked to educational attainment in Britain than in the other countries, with children from poor backgrounds trapped in the worst schools.
© Copyright of Telegraph
There was a study a while back (will try to find a linnk) which stated that a small percentage of inner city council estates contained actual clinical inbreds, where the families had basically never bred outside the estates for a few generations 
So if they never move out of the estates, and the estates get bigger, would make sense that there is a very small percentage willing to climb the ladder (bit easier with 6 toes so I hear
)
Also if you have everything paid for (welfare) - why would you want to work? I only do because I have drive and want to make myself a better person, and hopefully become reasonably weathly and happy in the meantime.
So if they never move out of the estates, and the estates get bigger, would make sense that there is a very small percentage willing to climb the ladder (bit easier with 6 toes so I hear
) Also if you have everything paid for (welfare) - why would you want to work? I only do because I have drive and want to make myself a better person, and hopefully become reasonably weathly and happy in the meantime.
JagLover said:
A spokesman for the Sutton Trust, an education charity, said: "We are not surprised by these findings. Although there have been reforms in education, they have mainly benefited the middle classes at the expense of the less affluent."
damn those middle class taxpaying want for nothings.......
gh0st said:
There was a study a while back (will try to find a linnk) which stated that a small percentage of inner city council estates contained actual clinical inbreds, where the families had basically never bred outside the estates for a few generations
So if they never move out of the estates, and the estates get bigger, would make sense that there is a very small percentage willing to climb the ladder (bit easier with 6 toes so I hear
Also if you have everything paid for (welfare) - why would you want to work? I only do because I have drive and want to make myself a better person, and hopefully become reasonably weathly and happy in the meantime.
Aren't most of the toffs inbread too? It doesn't seem to do them any harm, money-wise.
Seriously though, the best countries for socal mobilty are high tax/spend ones, as the story says. I've brought this up twice in the last few weeks and been slagged off and called a jealous (sic) socialist for some reason. People just can't undersand that I actually care about others, even though I have plenty of money in the bank.
JagLover said:
It also coincides with a huge expansion of the welfare state.
That is another possible explanation yes, that the rewards of hard work (both at school and at work) are not clear.
My theory is that socialists achieve the wrong result for the right reason.
They genuinely think that they can change society through welfare. And yet by giving handouts to people they made those people hand out dependant..effectively trapping them into there situation.
On a larger scale it's what Oxfam, Geldof et al want to do to Africa and tried but failed to do the S.E Asia.
minicity said:
Seriously though, the best countries for socal mobilty are high tax/spend ones, as the story says. I've brought this up twice in the last few weeks and been slagged off and called a jealous (sic) socialist for some reason. People just can't undersand that I actually care about others, even though I have plenty of money in the bank.
It is not necessarily about tax and spend, but the quality of the education system.
Both the UK and the US (which also came near the bottom) have a rather poor state education system, and in particular schools in poorer areas tend to do abysmally.
Another key factor affecting the degree of social mobility over the past 30 years may be how much social mobility there was prior to that. I have heard a theory that once the class system broke down people were free to advance based on ability rather than birth, so whereas in previous ages intelligence may have been fairly evenly spread throughout all classes, with the coming of greater social mobility a new class system based on intelligence (which is mostly inherited) is born.
timmy30 said:
My theory is that socialists achieve the wrong result for the right reason.
They genuinely think that they can change society through welfare. And yet by giving handouts to people they made those people hand out dependant..effectively trapping them into there situation.
On a larger scale it's what Oxfam, Geldof et al want to do to Africa and tried but failed to do the S.E Asia.
That is my thoughts exactly, there are a number of well meaning people who implement these policies, but they achieve the exact opposite of what they set out to achieve.
As the saying goes 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. It was not malice but compassion that created the current phenomenon of the non working classes.
Actually before going further I'd just like to say I don't agree with the way that they have measured social mobility. It seems as though they define social mobility through job title and having a university degree.
Well the emphasis on university degree certainly explains the higher 'social mobility' in the high tax and spend countries, using that definition a government can simply buy social mobility by sending everyone to university regardless of need.
Well the emphasis on university degree certainly explains the higher 'social mobility' in the high tax and spend countries, using that definition a government can simply buy social mobility by sending everyone to university regardless of need.
gh0st said:
There was a study a while back (will try to find a linnk) which stated that a small percentage of inner city council estates contained actual clinical inbreds, where the families had basically never bred outside the estates for a few generations
There's a large family in an estate in Yorkshire (that's probably anonymous enough
) who have (IIRC) 30 odd cases of a genetic disease called Fragile X between them. The normal incidence is (again IIRC) one in 10,000 minicity said:
Aren't most of the toffs inbread too?
Toff sandwiches? It'll never work
timmy30 said:
Actually before going further I'd just like to say I don't agree with the way that they have measured social mobility. It seems as though they define social mobility through job title and having a university degree.
They have by job title, but I don't think they have by University degree
>> Edited by JagLover on Friday 30th September 14:21
JagLover said:
Actually before going further I'd just like to say I don't agree with the way that they have measured social mobility. It seems as though they define social mobility through job title and having a university degree.
They have by job title, but I don't think they have by University degree
>> Edited by JagLover on Friday 30th September 14:21
They keep talking about whether someone whose parent had a professional job went on to get a degree though all the way through the article. So I assume that they consider attaining a degree to be an idicator of social mobility.
Why do assume that society can or should be mobile?
As one set of constraints on mobility, such as the class system, is removed, another is introduced.
We are now moving towards a new meritocracy based on a new assumption as to who has "merit". The new meritocracy is based on your earning potential and your qualifications and on how far you distance yourself from the percieved negative aspects of society such as benefit dependency and crime, the old one was based on class.
I would suggest that for the modern world this is fairer, as the new meritocracy favours those who contribute more, at least in most tangible areas such as wealth creation and shuns those who contribute least or who take, i.e. those who make their careers in claiming benefits or in crime.
In fact as geographical mobility increases I think society may become more stratified and rigid than ever with areas of towns and of the country as a whole being effectively reserved for people with very narrowly banded levels of "merit". We may well end up in the "brave new world" scenario of the population being banded into Alphas, Betas, Gammas, etc. with your life being effectively predestined by this banding!
As one set of constraints on mobility, such as the class system, is removed, another is introduced.
We are now moving towards a new meritocracy based on a new assumption as to who has "merit". The new meritocracy is based on your earning potential and your qualifications and on how far you distance yourself from the percieved negative aspects of society such as benefit dependency and crime, the old one was based on class.
I would suggest that for the modern world this is fairer, as the new meritocracy favours those who contribute more, at least in most tangible areas such as wealth creation and shuns those who contribute least or who take, i.e. those who make their careers in claiming benefits or in crime.
In fact as geographical mobility increases I think society may become more stratified and rigid than ever with areas of towns and of the country as a whole being effectively reserved for people with very narrowly banded levels of "merit". We may well end up in the "brave new world" scenario of the population being banded into Alphas, Betas, Gammas, etc. with your life being effectively predestined by this banding!
JagLover said:
It also coincides with a huge expansion of the welfare state.
That is another possible explanation yes, that the rewards of hard work (both at school and at work) are not clear.
So true, very hard to define success when a single mother can be recieving as much income as someone who works 40+ hours per week on a decent wage!
chris watton said:
timmy30 said:
It also coincides with a huge expansion of the welfare state.
That is another possible explanation yes, that the rewards of hard work (both at school and at work) are not clear.
So true, very hard to define success when a single mother can be recieving as much income as someone who works 40+ hours per week on a decent wage!
The result of this to me is misery all round, no one can progress. The 40+ hour worker is taxed so highly that they cannot save enough capital to break out of being a wage slave.
The signle mum is disuaded from working by the benefit payments and looses any skills/ employability as a result she is condemed to a life of welfare payments and boredom.
cymtriks said:
We are now moving towards a new meritocracy based on a new assumption as to who has "merit". The new meritocracy is based on your earning potential and your qualifications and on how far you distance yourself from the percieved negative aspects of society such as benefit dependency and crime, the old one was based on class.
That doesn't square with the fact that there is far less stigma attached to receiving benefits than ever before.
In fact, with the Working Family Tax Credit this government has in effect put large numbers of families on benefit who previously wouln't have been, thereby diluting the stigma attached in not working for your (or part of your) money.
I would say that there is now a disincentive to move between social classes since benefit in untaxed and therefore to earn anything like the level of benefit many receive, they would have to work far harder than they are prepared to and endure some hardship in attaining that level of income.
The 'meritocracy' idea seems to me to be a New Labour invention with, as usual, little substance to it for most ordinary people.
Mark Benson said:
We are now moving towards a new meritocracy based on a new assumption as to who has "merit". The new meritocracy is based on your earning potential and your qualifications and on how far you distance yourself from the percieved negative aspects of society such as benefit dependency and crime, the old one was based on class.
The 'meritocracy' idea seems to me to be a New Labour invention with, as usual, little substance to it for most ordinary people.
No I think it may be a correct theory
It depends however on how much weight you attach to nature versus nurture.
It goes like this under the old class system people were constrained by the class in which they were born, you might have a very bright working class lad but he would have a limited education and probably be off down pit, like his father before him, and he would marry within his class to a woman who might not necessarily be as bright as him.
Gradually the old class barriers were swept away, better education was available, including the grammer schools, which brought many working class children into the professions. What happens now, well many couples meet at uni or at the workplace so the intelligent pair up and their children are also intelligent. Gradually we move to a situation where intelligence is concentrated in the higher reaches of society, a natural class barier, rather than the previous artificial one.
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