Social mobility myths

PETER SAUNDERS
(www.petersaunders.org.uk)
Presentation to Grammar School Heads Association
Annual Conference, London, 19 June 2013

The 4 social mobility myths
• UK has a serious social mobility problem
• This problem is getting worse, and
opportunities for working class children are
deteriorating
• Intelligence is irrelevant –social origins are the
main factor shaping people’s destinies
• Social mobility must be increased by (yet more)
education reform

Myth 1: The belief that we have a mobility problem
• Cabinet Office, Getting On, Getting Ahead, 2008
social mobility has failed to improve , need to improve opportunities
Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, Unleashing Aspiration, 2009
‘birth, not worth, has become more a determinant of people’s life chances’
Britain is ‘a closed shop society’
National Equality Panel , An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK,
2010
mobility is ‘low’ and inequality hinders opportunity

Myth 1: The belief that we have a mobility problem
Opening Doors and Breaking Barriers (Coalition’s Social Mobility Strategy, 2011 ,
updated 2012
‘evidence on social mobility is not encouraging... Tragically, we can predict the
likely fortunes of too many children, because of the clear influence of social
background’ (Clegg)
All-party parliamentary group Interim Report, 7 Key Truths
About Social Mobility (May 2012)
‘UK mobility is low relative to other OECD countries’
‘today’s 40-somethings have less mobility than their elders’
Fair Access to Professional Career May 2012 (Alan Milburn’s 1st progress report)
‘professions close their doors to a wider social spectrum of talent instead of
opening them’

Myth 1: Do we really have a mobility problem?
Dividing the population into
3 social classes:
• Professional-managerial
• Intermediate
• Routine & semi-routine
Goldthorpe’s classic 1970s
study found:
More than half of us are in
a different class than the
one we were born into
• 2005 General Household
Survey:
• 32% men born to routine
and semi-routine class
parents reached
professional-managerial
class
• 30% born to professional
parents were downwardly
mobile

Dividing the population
into 3 social classes:
• Professional-managerial
• Intermediate
• Routine & semi-routine
More than half of us are
in a different class than
the one we were born into
2005 General Household
Survey:
• 32% men born to routine
and semi-routine class
parents reached
professional-managerial
class
• 30% men born to
professional parents were
downwardly mobile

1958 cohort (National Child
Development Study):
45% of men and 39% women
upwardly mobile by age 33
27% of men and 37% of women
downwardly mobile by 33
1970 (British Cohort Study):
42% of men and 41% women
upwardly mobile by age 30
30% of men and 35% of women
downwardly mobile by 30
John Goldthorpe and Michelle Jackson, ‘Intergenerational
class mobility in contemporary Britain’ BJS vol 58, 2007

But politicians seem ignorant or indifferent to this evidence...
‘Mobility Tsar’ Alan
Milburn’ on BBC Radio 4
Today programme (5th April
2011):
“We still live in a
country where,
invariably, if you're
born poor, you die
poor”
Eighty-one per cent of
British men who grew up
in families below the
poverty line end up in
adulthood with incomes
above the poverty line
Jo Blanden and Steve Gibbons, The persistence
of poverty across generations, Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, 2006, Table 2

But politicians seem ignorant or indifferent to evidence...
‘Mobility Tsar’ Alan
Milburn’ on BBC Radio 4
Today programme (5th April
2011):
“We still live in a
country where,
invariably, if you're
born poor, you die
poor”
Eighty-one per cent of
British men who grew up
in families below the
poverty line end up in
adulthood with incomes
above the poverty line
Jo Blanden and Steve Gibbons, The persistence
of poverty across generations, Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, 2006, Table 2

They claim UK has less mobility than other comparable countries...
May 2012, Michael Gove:
‘Those who are born poor are more likely to
stay poor and those who inherit privilege are
more likely to pass on privilege in England than
in any comparable country. For those of us
who believe in social justice, this stratification
and segregation are morally indefensible.’
2011 Opening Doors report :
‘We are less socially mobile than other
countries.’
2012 Damien Hinds MP (chair, 7 Key Truths...
report):
‘There are plenty of other countries that have
much more mobility than us... the UK is always
almost in the worst position.
Breen (Social Mobility in Europe,
2004) placed Britain in the
middle of the international
rankings, ahead of Germany
and Denmark, but behind
Sweden and the USA
OECD (Intergenerational
Transmission of Disadvantage
2007) puts UK around the
middle between Sweden,
Canada and Norway (more
fluid) and Germany, Ireland,
Italy and France (more rigid)

May 2012, Michael Gove:
‘Those who are born poor are more likely to
stay poor and those who inherit privilege are
more likely to pass on privilege in England than
in any comparable country. For those of us
who believe in social justice, this stratification
and segregation are morally indefensible.’
2011 Opening Doors report :
‘We are less socially mobile than other
countries.’
2012 Damien Hinds MP (chair, 7 Key Truths...
report):
‘There are plenty of other countries that have
much more mobility than us... the UK is always
almost in the worst position.
But evidence on occupational mobility puts UK about average
Breen (Social Mobility in
Europe, 2004): Britain ahead
of Germany and Denmark,
but behind Sweden and the
USA
OECD (Intergenerational
Transmission of
Disadvantage 2007) UK
between Sweden, Canada
and Norway (more fluid) and
Germany, Ireland, Italy and
France (more rigid)

Politicians in thrall to Sutton Trust research on income
mobility in different countries
This puts UK behind Italy, France, Norway, Australia,
Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland & Denmark.
But many problems with this research...

Sutton Trust admits:
‘Large standard errors on the Australian, French, British and US estimates
make it unclear how these countries should be ranked’
‘There is a great deal of uncertainty about comparisons made on the basis
of income mobility’
Jo Blanden, ‘How much can we learn from international comparisons of social mobility? Centre for the Economics of Education Departmental Paper
no.111, November 2009, London School of Economics, pp.15 & 37
OECD warns:
‘These comparisons can be invalid because different studies use different
variable definitions, samples, estimation methods and time periods’
‘Intergenerational mobility in OECD countries’ 2010, p.9

Sutton Trust claims measures of education mobility back up its claims
But 2010 OECD report ranks Britain:
• 9th out of 30 on how far children’s educational attainment is
independent of their parents’ socio-economic status;
• in the middle of the rankings on the probability of a child attending
university if their parents are not graduates
UK Dept for Education confirms:
‘Student attainment is no more closely related to socio-economic
background than on average across the OECD’
DfE Research Report No.206, April 2012, p.2

Myth 2: The belief that mobility has been falling
Absolute mobility is falling as the middle class
becomes saturated.
But what concerns politicians is relative mobility –
the chances of working class children relative to
chances of middle class children
Slowdown in growth of middle class has no
necessary implications for relative mobility
chances

Politicians believe relative mobility getting worse:
• 2011 Opening Doors report: ‘social mobility for children born in Great
Britain in 1970 got slightly worse than for children born in 1958.’
• 2012 7 Truths report: ‘Today’s 40-somethings have shown less mobility
than their elders.’
Media pick up on this and exaggerate it:
“soul-sapping immobility” (New Statesman)
“sad death of opportunity in an increasingly class-bound Britain” (Daily
Mail)
This belief that things getting worse again reflects Sutton Trust research...

Sutton Trust looks at
father-son income
correlations in 1958 and
1970 birth cohorts.
Find apparent fall in
fluidity in later cohort.
1958 (NCDS)
• 35% of kids from top income
quartile got to top quartile
• 17% fell to bottom quartile
1970 (BCS)
• 42% of kids from top income
quartile got to top quartile
• 11% fell to bottom quartile
‘coefficient of elasticity’ rose
from 0.21 for the 1958 cohort
to 0.29 for 1970 cohort

BUT...
• British Household Panel Study finds no difference in income
mobility for cohorts born in this period: ‘There are no strong
changes in intergenerational mobility across cohorts from
1950 to 1972’
Ermisch & Nicoletti ISER WP 2005
• No studies find any difference in class mobility between 1958
and 1970 cohorts: ‘The pattern of fluidity is very much the
same’
Goldthorpe and Jackson, Br Jnl Soc, 2007

Sutton Trust result seems suspect
‘It seems widely believed that in recent decades intergenerational mobility
has declined. This prevailing view is simply mistaken’
(Goldthorpe and Mills. Nat Instit Ec Rev 2008)
It is the only study reporting a mobility fall
‘This slender analysis has had more influence on public policy debate than
any academic paper of the last 20 years. The lazy consensus which has
decreed the end of social mobility is both wrong and damaging’
(David Goodhart, Prospect, 2008)

Myth 3: Does class really trump ability?
Government’s 2012 social mobility targets ignore ability:
‘Those with parents in managerial or professional occupations
are almost twice as likely as others to end up in those
occupations as adults. This is one of the indicators that we will
use to measure progress’
But how bright are these children?
How many middle class children should we expect to end up in
middle class jobs?

• The goal: There should be no
association between class origin and
class destination
• Assumes equal distribution of talent
across every class
• But in a meritocracy, talented people
will be recruited to the higher
classes...
• ...where they produce more talented
children (parent-child IQ correlation =
0.5).
• So we should expect children of
higher class parents to achieve higher
success levels.
STEP 1: Bright youngsters do
well at school and get top jobs
STEP 2: They meet
bright partners
STEP 3: They have children of
above average ability
STEP 4: Their children in
turn do well at school and
get top jobs

NCDS (age 33) shows:
High ability children rarely fail (irrespective of their class of origin):
• 65% of top IQ quartile get to professional-managerial class
• Only 5% of top IQ quartile end up in semi- or unskilled manual jobs
But low ability middle class children do sometimes succeed when they
‘shouldn’t’:
• 41% of middle class children in the lowest IQ quartile end up in professional-managerial class
• 21% of working class children in the lowest IQ quartile end up in professional-managerial
class

CATEGORY PROPORTION OF VARIANCE EXPLAINED = 35% of which...
Social advantages/disadvantages:
Parents class 3%
Housing conditions <1%
Independent school <1%
Parents’ behaviour and attitudes:
Aspirations for child 1%
Interest in child’s education 3%
Individual characteristics:
Academic ability 17%
Ambition and hard work 5%
Qualifications 6%
TOTAL VARIANCE EXPLAINED 35%

When they do mention ability differences, politicians claim it reflects
social advantages and disadvantages:
• 2011 Opening Doors... Report: ‘Gaps in development between
children from different backgrounds can be detected even at birth
and widen rapidly during the first few years of life’
• Clegg 2011: ‘By the age of five, bright children from poorer
backgrounds have been overtaken by less bright children from
richer ones – and from this point on, the gaps tend to widen even
further.’
• Gove 2010: “In effect, rich thick kids do better than poor clever
children when they arrive at school and the situation as they go
through gets worse”

This claims rests on evidence from 1970 cohort that
bright working class kids seem to fall behind dull middle
class kids by 10:
‘Social inequalities appear to dominate the apparent early positive signs of
academic ability for most of those low SES children who do well early on.’
(Feinstein, Centre for Economic Performance Paper No.146, June 2003)

But the apparent cross-over of bright lower class children
and dull higher class children is generated entirely by
regression to the mean. It is a statistical artefact
Jerrim and Vignoles ,Department of Quantitative Social Science Working Paper no.11-01, April 2011, Institute of Education
Can correct for this by using different tests to:
• Assign children to high/low ability at outset
• Measure their changing ability scores over time
Use data from 2000 Millenium cohort where 2 different
ability tests were used...

Jerrim and Vignoles:
‘There is currently an overwhelming view amongst
academics and policymakers that highly able children from
poor homes get overtaken by their affluent (but less able)
peers before the end of primary school. Although this
empirical finding is treated as a stylised fact, the
methodology used to reach this conclusion is seriously
flawed. After attempting to correct for the aforementioned
problem, we find little evidence that this is actually the
case in current data.’
This research has been completely ignored by politicians.

Myth 4: Social mobility needs more education reform
50 years of policies designed to tap into ‘pools of wasted working class talent’
• Education Priority Areas
• End 11+ and replace grammar schools with comprehensives
• End academic streaming
• Raise school leaving age to 16
• Abolition of direct grant schools
• ‘Progressive’ teaching methods and reading schemes
• Move to an all-graduate teaching profession
• Amalgamation of universities and polytechnics
• Introduction of the core curriculum
• Doubling of schools expenditure by Blair and new build programme
• Huge expansion of higher education – 50% target for 18 year-olds
• Extension of free pre-schooling to the under-fives
• 30 year inflation of GCSE and A-level grades
• Introduction of academies
• Replacement of school catchment areas by ballots and other contrivances
Yet throughout this period, relative social mobility rates have hardly shifted.

Undeterred, the government is still emphasising education reform as key to
its social mobility strategy
‘fair access to universities’:
Financial penalties on universities which fail to achieve ‘fair access’ targets
But no evidence of class bias in university recruitment:
IFS finds social class differences in university enrolments entirely explained
by gaps in applicants’ prior educational attainments (reported in ‘7 Key
Truths...’)
So govt social mobility strategy will make a meritocratic system anti-
meritocratic!

We do have a mobility problem – but it’s at the bottom, not the top.
Neglectful or inadequate parenting is the key problem:
• only 1/3rd of the poorest children living with both biological parents, compared with 88% in the
middle income group
• 1 in 5 poorest kids been born to teenage mothers
• over 1/3rd had parents with no good GCSE between them
• children start school unable to distinguish numbers and letters; some still in nappies
• 11 month gap between average verbal test scores of children from low and middle income families
- 40% of it due to home environment and parental factors
Waldfogel & Washbrook, Low income and early cognitive development in the UK Sutton Trust Research Report, February 2010
University admissions quotas irrelevant to this

Conclusion
UK is not a ‘closed shop society’
• More than ½ population moves between 3 classes
• Class mobility no worse in UK than elsewhere
• Comparative income mobility data unreliable; education data look quite favourable
Social mobility is not declining
• No change in class mobility in 1958-1970 cohorts
• No change in income mobility in BHPS in this same period
Individual characteristics mainly determine outcomes
• Ability & hard work much more important than class origins
• Half variance in occupational outcomes explained by IQ alone
• Not true that ‘rich thick kids’ overtake poor clever ones
Attacking elite universities and independent schools is tackling the wrong problem
• Underclass parenting is the key problem
• University recruitment is wholly meritocratic

Conclusion
Britain is not a ‘perfect meritocracy’
• downward mobility by dull middle
class children is a bit sticky
• underclass children damaged by poor parenting
But for most UK children, if you are bright and
work hard, you will almost certainly succeed.

Social mobility myths

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (18)

Similar a Social mobility myths

Similar a Social mobility myths (20)

Último

Último (10)

Social mobility myths