Policy paper

State of the Nation 2022: Foreword

Updated 21 July 2022

Presented to Parliament pursuant to section 8B(6) of the Life Chances Act 2010, June 2022

1. Foreword

Katharine Birbalsingh CBE, Chair

It is a great privilege to be leading the Social Mobility Commission at this time.

Over the last 2 years we have had a pandemic, a European war, and a growing cost of living crisis. There were already a great many challenges to deal with before all these new crises arose – not least the issue of differences in opportunity across the country.

This makes it all the more important that we approach the challenge of improving social mobility with clarity, and that we make recommendations that will make a difference.

So, through this report and our wider agenda, we want to chart a new course for the Commission.

1.1 The problem

In our view, traditional approaches to improving social mobility haven’t always worked widely, despite the best of intentions. Too many interventions have focused on getting people to leave the place where they grew up, acquire brilliant academic credentials, and gain entry into an elite professional occupation. There is nothing wrong with this view of social mobility, but it is not enough.

Widening access to university has not brought the dividends many hoped for, and has diverted attention away from the 50% that pursue other routes.

Meanwhile, not enough attention has been paid to improving the skills of those at the bottom – both adults and young people – whose opportunities, because of a lack of basic literacy, numeracy and employability skills, are extremely limited.

And there is a particular challenge for people living in neighbourhoods and places where, for a whole variety of reasons, educational and economic outcomes appear to be poor across generations.

1.2 The state of social mobility

Despite the popular narrative, it’s not true that social mobility is getting worse on all counts. In reality the picture is complex. Occupational mobility has been fairly stable for decades, while on other aspects there is less consensus.

Nonetheless, there are pockets of real concern. Even if social mobility is not deteriorating, it can still be much harder for some compared to others.

Because of this, we’re convinced we need to take a more nuanced view of social mobility so that we can prioritise the areas where need is greatest, and where we can have the most impact.

1.3 A fresh approach

As a Commission, we want to take a fresh approach. We believe that in order to create opportunities for those with the least opportunity, we need to create a wider range of options. We need to move away from a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of social mobility.

We plan to undertake research to get a better understanding of what real people actually think about social mobility, so we can ensure the work of the Commission is aligned to their needs and wants.

We want to move away from a narrow focus on ‘long’ upward mobility – moving a few from the ‘bottom’ into the ‘top’ – to a broader view of different kinds of social mobility, sometimes over shorter distances, for a greater number of people.

This means getting the whole sector thinking differently and collecting and using data differently. It means being clearer about the instances where mobility is working well – and being clearer about the various factors which help to make this happen.

And it means being clearer about obstacles which hold people back – and how they might be removed.

1.4 Inequality and agency

We believe there is risk in conflating inequality and social mobility.

Inequality is clearly an important theme in social mobility, and inequality does shape and affect opportunity.  But inequality and social mobility are not the same thing.

For example, we could reduce inequality, without improving social mobility: we could reduce the gap between the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’, without improving the movement in between. Similarly, we could improve social mobility without reducing inequality – by moving a higher percentage of people from the ‘bottom’ to the ‘top’, but allowing the gap between the 2 to increase.

In addition, focusing only on disparities leaves us with a caricatured view of society divided into 2 groups: those at the ‘bottom,’ with very little chance of improving their situation, and another group – everyone else – whose achievements and accomplishments are solely a by-product of their relative levels of privilege. This approach risks obscuring differences between people in the same category, as well as people who move between categories and don’t rigidly fit into either.

In this view, neither group has any agency. Everyone is a prisoner of the circumstances into which they were born. This view doesn’t stop to examine how people who buck the trend manage to do it.

There is clearly a correlation between inequalities and social mobility. But the link is not a simple one and we should be considering a wider range of explanations, not just inequality alone.

Crucially, we are passionate in our belief that although some people may face more obstacles than others, they can still change their stars.

And we believe we need to start talking about things the social mobility community has often found uncomfortable:

• diversity of talent – we believe cognitive ability is overemphasised (for example, getting smart kids into top universities and jobs), and as a Commission, we believe that other talents and other jobs should be valued too

• families are frequently mentioned, but mainly as vehicles for passing on privilege – there is a lot more to be said about family size, values, family drive and motivation, and how this influences outcomes

• culture and values are sometimes acknowledged, but are probably not given sufficient weight – we should not underestimate their impact

Some of these things are hard to measure, which is why they are sometimes ignored. We want to change that. Where we can, we want to find ways to measure them. But even where that’s not possible, we want to make sure they’re part of the conversation.

1.5 A new index

Ultimately data alone cannot give us all the answers, but it can get us to a clearer starting point from which to identify the interventions which really make a difference. We need to move beyond general analyses of gaps and disparities, to a more granular and analytical approach.

That’s why we’re excited to unveil the new Social Mobility Index. The innovative metrics in this report have been carefully selected and vetted by experts in economics, sociology, and education, as well as stakeholders from government, business, and third-sector organisations.

This report is not the end, but rather the start of a conversation that we hope to continue over the next 4 years and beyond – as the Commission reports consistently on these metrics year on year.

Over the course of our tenure, we want to continue tracking underlying factors, but we also want to go beyond this to improve how we track actual social mobility – movement, from one generation to the other, from one category of occupation or income to another.

In next year’s report, we will also overlay these metrics by UK regions, and give additional breakdowns by other characteristics including sex, ethnicity and disability. These breakdowns will connect personal characteristics to a place, and can help to inform early thinking about policy solutions.

In the age of ‘levelling up,’ we believe that the link between social mobility policy and the missions and targets in the Levelling Up Statement of Missions is critical. Simply put, the point of levelling up should be to create more opportunity for more people in more places. That is why we want to see government, both local and national, placing social mobility at the heart of levelling up by using our findings to inform and evaluate success, and to make sure that their benefits are reaching those who need them most.

We want to get at the reasons why social mobility happens, when it happens, and how people buck the trend.

But to get to many of these more nuanced conclusions, we also need better data. If we can’t collect the right data, too much of this work can become elaborate guesswork. That’s why we’re calling on government to close the data gaps we’ve identified in this report, and join up data where needed, and we will make specific recommendations on how to do this in future. The government’s Equality Data Programme is a good start, but we believe there are areas where government can go even further. For example, in the UK, the tax records of parents and children aren’t linked, as they are in other countries like the US, making measurement of income mobility much more difficult.

1.6 Conclusion

The above is not to say that we reject all the work that has already been done.

But we will be taking a fresh approach, which sees social mobility as the process of enabling everyone to find and apply their talents in ways that they enjoy and gives them purpose. We want to ask different questions – for example on talent, ability, families, culture and values. And we want to start a wider conversation across the sector about how to do that.

We will be looking at:

• education, which includes early years, schools and universities, but also other routes such as further education and apprenticeships – and as we have said, we will be keen to understand more about how we can help families and parents

• employment – going beyond large professional firms to look at the role of smaller enterprises in generating opportunity, and at how the value of qualifications – particularly degrees and technical qualifications – is shaped by wider issues in the labour market, including levels of regulation

• enterprise and the economy – and we will be interested in the creation of opportunities, their geographical spread, and the role of enterprise in sometimes consolidating and sometimes disrupting traditional social mobility hierarchies

We passionately believe that with a sharper lens, which really spots where the problems lie, we can find out what works and start making a difference. In the end, it’s about ensuring that everyone has a decent chance to succeed whatever their background. It’s about people being able to change their stars.

2. About the Social Mobility Commission

The Social Mobility Commission is an independent advisory non-departmental public body established under the Life Chances Act 2010 as modified by the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. It has a duty to assess progress in improving social mobility in the UK and to promote social mobility in England. The Commission board comprises:

2.1 Chair

Katharine Birbalsingh CBE, Founder and Headmistress of Michaela Community School

2.2 Deputy Chair

Alun Francis OBE, Principal and Chief Executive of Oldham College

2.3 Acknowledgements

This report was written with contributions from the following people:

• Anthony Heath - Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Social Investigation at Nuffield College, University of Oxford

• Yaojun Li - Professor of Social Change (Sociology), University of Manchester

• Jo Blanden – Reader, School of Economics, University of Surrey

Main analysis and writing led by:

• Jacalyn Guy

• Michael Pandazis

• Jaspal Buttar

We are also grateful for contributions from:

• Elena Ahmed

• Helen Anderson

• Nicola Di Luzio

• Jo Johnston

• Darren Ramdoo

• Emily-Rose Rolfe

• Jill Sherman