A paper examined the finding that family income was more closely related to sons' earnings for a cohort born in 1970 compared with one born in 1958. It rejected the hypothesis that the observed decline in income mobility was a consequence of the poor measurement of permanent family income in the 1958 cohort.
Source: Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg, and Lindsey Macmillan, Intergenerational Persistence in Income and Social Class: The impact of within-group inequality, Discussion Paper 6202, Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Dec
A study compared mobility trends across 10 countries, including the United Kingdom (and England). Gaps in school readiness in England between less advantaged children and their more advantaged counterparts were larger than those in similar nations such as Canada and Australia, but smaller than those in the United States. Disparities in early child outcomes persisted into adolescence, with comparatively large attainment gaps observed in England.
Source: What Prospects for Mobility in the UK? A cross-national study of educational inequalities and their implications for future education and earnings mobility, Sutton Trust
Links: Summary | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Nov
A paper examined the identification of the 'middle class' using data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The concept of 'class' required the examination of other dimensions beyond income – including property and occupations.
Source: Anthony Atkinson and Andrea Brandolini, On the Identification of the 'Middle Class', Working Paper 2011-217, ECINEQ: Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (Palma de Mallorca)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Sep
A paper examined how social class shaped the occurrence of social risks (defined as socio-economic circumstances associated with significant losses of income) in European Union countries.
Source: Olivier Pintelon, Bea Cantillon, Karel Van den Bosch, and Christopher Whelan, The Social Stratification of Social Risks, Working Paper 11/04, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy (University of Antwerp)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Sep
A think-tank report examined the factors that influenced an individual's chances of moving up the earnings ladder. Women fared significantly worse than men. Part-time workers were up to 90 per cent more likely to move down the earnings scale than full-timers. Those living outside London – in particular those in the north east, north west, east midlands, and south west – were less likely to move up, and more likely to move down, the pay scale than those in London.
Source: Lee Savage, Snakes and Ladders: Who climbs the rungs of the earnings ladder, Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Sep
An article examined the occupational mobility of men in three birth cohorts. Although educational qualifications had a strong effect on occupational attainment, this effect did not increase across the three cohorts. Class origins also had a significant effect, and one that did not decrease across the cohorts. Features of work-life experience, in particular the frequency of occupational changes, also had a persisting effect, independently of both education and class origins. Men in the 1958 birth cohort, whose first years in the labour market coincided with a period of severe recession, de-industrialization, and high unemployment, appeared to have experienced various lasting disadvantages in their subsequent occupational histories.
Source: Erzsebet Bukodi and John Goldthorpe, 'Class origins, education and occupational attainment in Britain', European Societies, Volume 13 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Aug
An article examined the mobility trajectories of men and women aged 25-59 using the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey. There was an increase in downward mobility for men, although long-term mobility from the working class into salariat positions was still in evidence. In relation to women, there were favourable trends in upward mobility and unchanging downward mobility.
Source: Yaojun Li and Fiona Devine, 'Is social mobility really declining? Intergenerational class mobility in Britain in the 1990s and the 2000s', Sociological Research Online, Volume 16 Issue 3
Links: Article
Date: 2011-Aug
A government-appointed review called for submissions of evidence on the links between social mobility and child poverty; on the main barriers that stopped people moving out of poverty; and on whether the coalition government's policies, in particular the social mobility and child poverty strategies, would improve people's life-chances.
Source: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Review: Call for Evidence, Cabinet Office
Links: Call for evidence
Date: 2011-Aug
A think-tank report called for 'greater efforts at intervention directed at the family sphere' in order to prevent the squandering of individual potential – particularly among children from lower-income backgrounds.
Source: Chris Paterson, Parenting Matters: Early years and social mobility, CentreForum
Links: Report | BBC report | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Aug
A paper examined the nature and extent of socio-spatial mobility. Restricted ability to compete for the better neighbourhoods combined with residence in neighbourhoods with relatively high degrees of deprivation to limit opportunities for social mobility. Education and income played critical roles in the ability of individuals to make neighbourhood and decile gains when they moved. Being unemployed and being (and becoming) a social renter were also powerful influences: they combined to seriously restrict the possibilities for socio-spatial movement for certain groups. The results suggested that there were serious structural barriers to socio-spatial mobility, directly related to the organization of the housing market.
Source: William Clark, Maarten van Ham, and Rory Coulter, Socio-Spatial Mobility in British Society, Discussion Paper 5861, Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Jul
A new book examined how the media and political world dismissed as 'feckless, criminalized and ignorant' a large, underprivileged swathe of society whose members had become stereotyped by the word 'chavs'. The chav stereotype was used by governments to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems, and to justify widening inequality.
Source: Owen Jones, Chavs: The demonization of the working class, Verso Books
Links: Summary | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Jul
A paper compared the intergenerational transmission of advantages in 8 European countries (including the United Kingdom).
Source: Michele Raitano and Francesco Vona, The Economic Impact of Upward and Downward Occupational Mobility: A comparison of eight EU member states, Working Paper 13, Doctoral School of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-Jun
An article examined intergenerational mobility of economic well-being for the countries of the European Union. Income well-being was much more persistent across generations in southern European countries than in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Source: Jose Alberto Molina, Maria Navarro, and Ian Walker, 'Intergenerational well-being mobility in Europe', Kyklos: International Review for Social Sciences, Volume 64 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-May
A paper examined a new approach to measuring social mobility that involved separating out the valuation of positions in terms of individual status (using income, social rank, or other criteria) from the issue of movement between positions.
Source: Frank Cowell and Emmanuel Flachaire, Measuring Mobility, Public Economics Programme PEP 09, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (London School of Economics)
Links: Paper
Date: 2011-May
An article examined how factors such as class position, education, social network membership, and cultural capital contributed to the intergenerational transmission of class advantage for women and men in different European welfare states.
Source: Peter Taylor-Gooby, 'Taking advantage: informal social mechanisms and equal opportunities policies', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Volume 31 Issue 5/6
Links: Table of contents
Date: 2011-May
An article examined the empirical evidence on trends in social class inequalities in educational attainment and the role of education in promoting social mobility in Scotland.
Source: Cristina Iannelli, 'Educational expansion and social mobility: the Scottish case', Social Policy and Society, Volume 10 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Apr
A paper examined whether studies showing a gap in cognitive skill between richer and poorer children from a very early age were affected by a statistical error known as 'regression to the mean' (RTM). There were 'serious methodological problems' plaguing the existing literature, and after applying some simple adjustments for RTM, dramatically different results were obtained.
Source: John Jerrim and Anna Vignoles, The Use (and Misuse) of Statistics in Understanding Social Mobility: Regression to the mean and the cognitive development of high ability children from disadvantaged homes, Working Paper 11-01, Department of Quantitative Social Science, Institute of Education (University of London)
Links: Paper | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Apr
The government published a strategy for improving social mobility. The strategy included measures for each stage of a person's life, including: 15 hours per week of free education for disadvantaged children at age 2, and for all children aged 3-4; a (previously announced) £2.5 billion pupil premium to encourage schools to recruit disadvantaged pupils; a £150 million 'National Scholarship Programme' for students from poorer backgrounds; and an end to informally arranged internships in the civil service, with 'an expectation' that other employers would also end this practice. A Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission was established, initially chaired by former Labour minister Alan Milburn, to report to Parliament on progress.
Source: Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A strategy for social mobility, Cabinet Office
Links: Strategy | Hansard | Cabinet Office press release | CBI press release | Demos press release | Family Action press release | Million+ press release | NDNA press release | NUT press release | Russell Group press release | Turning Point press release | Public Finance report | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Apr
An article examined how inequality affected individuals' relative socio-economic status (SES) within regions. In more 'dynamic' regions, individuals with a higher SES were less likely to move down the social ladder. In less dynamic regions, income inequality might translate into inequality in terms of job opportunities and career prospects: in this case, individuals with a higher SES were likely to step down, while people with a lower social status might experience a social class 'trap'.
Source: Germana Corrado and Luisa Corrado, 'Moving down the social ladder: analysing the relationship between status and regional inequality in the UK', Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Volume 4 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Mar
An article examined the claim that the shift from a selective to a comprehensive school system had a deleterious effect on social mobility. Comprehensive schools were found to be as good for mobility as the selective schools that they had replaced. Any assistance to 'low-origin' children provided by grammar (selective) schools was cancelled out by the hindrance suffered by those who attended secondary moderns.
Source: Vikki Boliver and Adam Swift, 'Do comprehensive schools reduce social mobility?', British Journal of Sociology, Volume 62 Issue 2
Links: Abstract | Oxford University press release | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Mar
A think-tank report examined earnings change for two groups of individuals who aged from their thirties to their forties over the 1990s and 2000s. Earnings mobility increased modestly in the 2000s compared with the 1990s. Long-range upwards mobility (defined as moving upwards 3 or more deciles) increased by 22 per cent in the 2000s compared with the 1990s. The chances of moving upwards from the bottom of the earnings distribution to the very top remained very low but did rise, increasing from 3 per cent in the 1990s to 6 per cent in the 2000s.
Source: Lee Savage, Moving On Up? Social mobility in the 1990s and 2000s, Resolution Foundation
Links: Report | Summary | Resolution press release
Date: 2011-Mar
A literature review examined the evidence on effective skills/training interventions to promote social mobility. The evidence clearly indicated the importance of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills in explaining social mobility: but interventions to improve adults' cognitive skills were often costly and/or ineffective. The evidence, although very limited, was somewhat more promising about the scope to influence adults' non-cognitive skills. There was a pressing need to improve the evidence base on the effectiveness of specific interventions.
Source: Claire Crawford, Paul Johnson, Steve Machin, and Anna Vignoles, Social Mobility: A Literature Review, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Mar
An article questioned the theoretical account that had been offered to explain (on the one hand) the stability observed in relative social mobility – both over time and as between different industrial nations – and (on the other hand) the muting effects of egalitarian policies.
Source: Graham Room, 'Social mobility and complexity theory: towards a critique of the sociological mainstream', Policy Studies, Volume 32 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Mar
A new book (fully revised second edition) used class theory to interrogate and explain patterns and trends in economic inequalities, and to explore their social consequences.
Source: Ken Roberts, Class in Contemporary Britain (2nd edition), Palgrave Macmillan
Links: Summary
Date: 2011-Feb