Origin, education and destination – an analysis of social mobility in Britain ( ) For presentation at Education and Employers Taskforce research conference 2011 exploring social mobility and delivery mechanisms in international perspective 12 October: University of Warwick Yaojun Li and Fiona Devine School of Social Sciences Manchester University, UK

Aims of this presentation  To explore patterns of intergenerational educational and class mobility in Britain ;  To assess the extent of class differences in the two areas and the direction of change;  To bridge the differences in academic and political understanding of mobility;  To see where the government and society could do better to improve social equality and social inclusion 2

Why should we be concerned? A fair society is the life-blood of democracy and our shared future; A fair society has equal life chances for all regardless of family origin, gender and other ascribed factors; A fair society is characterised by meritocracy (ability and effort) but ascribed meritocracy may be a better description of social reality? How much inequality is there in our society, and In what direction is it changing? 3

An ideal scenario 4

Why shall we be concerned with OED Because family classes play a very important role in E and D We might not be able to change E-D very much but changing the O-E relations, we might hopefully bring about more mobility in E and then in D 5

Debates in mobility research Academics talk about absolute and relative mobility but considerable differences among themselves Policy-makers, the media and the general public tend to view mobility as upward mobility only A truly fair and equal society includes both upward mobility for working class children (where policy can have a difference) and downward mobility for middle- class children (where policy cannot do much) Greater upward mobility will increase social fluidity even though downward mobility remains at a similar level 6

Competing theses of mobility Constant social fluidity (Goldthorpe 1987; Goldthorpe and Mills 2004, 2008; Goldthorpe and Jackson 2007) t1 tn Declining social mobility (Blanden et al 2005) t1 tn Signs of increasing social fluidity (Heath and Payne 2000; Lambert et al 2007; Li and Devine 2011) t1 tn 7

Why the differences Economists use family income data put in quantiles and thus relativise the analysis from the start, unable to differentiate absolute and relative mobility Sociologists use class-based models with attention to both absolute and relative mobility (but with the main focus on relative mobility expressed in odds ratios, however, those models do not allow multiple continuous covariates to be included--loglinear and log multiplicative layer-effects or UNIDIFF) Data consistency also affects conclusions reached among sociologists 8

Data for this analysis  The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) 1991  The General Household Survey (GHS) 2005  These are the best data sources currently available:  Nationally representative social surveys with large samples  Consistent coding for father’s, mother’s and respondent’s class in National Statistics Social-economic Classification (NS-SeC) allowing for theoretically-guided recoding: dominance approach to parental class and putting lower- grade routine-non-manual (IIIb) to unskilled manual routine class (VIIab) for both parental and respondent’s classes  BHPS has parental and respondent’s class for all aged 16+  GHS has only parental class data for respondents aged  We therefore use data for men and women 25-63

The O-E-D links 10

The O-E link 11

The O-E link 12

The O-E link 13

The O-E link 14

Summary of the O-E link Great class differences in education for both men and women There are also signs of class differences on the decline. Class I and VII differences in tertiary education fell from 50 to 43 percentage points (68% v 18%; 64% v 21%) for men, and from 48 to 45 points for women (61% v 13%; 64% v 19%) Reduced gender differences (34% to 35% for men; 25% to 35% for women) 15

The O-D link 16

The O-D link 17

The O-D link 18

The O-D link 19

Summary of the O-D link Again great class differences for both men and women, in class attainment There are also signs of class differences on the decline. Class I and VII differences in access to salariat positions fell from 47 to 37 percentage points (70% v 23%; 68% v 31%) for men, and from 41 to 31 points for women (61% v 20%; 56% v 25%) Reduced gender differences (37% to 44% for men; 29% to 39% for women) 20

The E-D link 21

The E-D link 22

The E-D link 23

The E-D link 24

Summary of the E-D link Expected educational differences for both men and women in class attainment There are also signs of educational differences on the decline. Differences between degree- holders and those with no qualifications in access to salariat positions fell from 80 to 71 percentage points for men, and from 76 to 72 points for women 25

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Summary of trends in relative mobilities Weakening O-E and O-D links for men and women Unchanging E-D links The meritocratic ideal is not substantiated 27

Which part do the changes occur? Men  O-E: Classes II-IV  O-D: Class II  E-D: Degree holders  O-E-D: Classes I-II, Degree-holder, but non-significant Women  O-D: Class I;  E-D: Degree holder 28

An example of O-E 29

An example of O-E 30

Conclusion Great origin class differences in people’s education and occupational attainment The origin effects have reduced slightly, giving some hopes that progress could be made Government can do more to help the most disadvantaged to have better education by reducing fees, getting rid of NEETs Employers could provide or fund more on-job training to help the poorly-educated to have better skills, to give them a second chance 31

Many thanks and suggestions warmly welcome 32

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34 Loglinear and UNIDIFF Models

35 How to account for the lack of progress in social mobility? – A R ational A ction T heory explanation for a S ocial A dvantage and D isadvantage story ‘In terms of individuals of differing class origins pursuing ‘mobility strategies’ that, while rationally adaptive to the constraints typical of their class situations, tend in their aggregate outcome to maintain relative rates unaltered, at all events in the absence of any external modification of these constraints that would constitute a reduction – or an increase – in class-lined inequalities of condition’ (Goldthorpe and Mills, 2004: 223).

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