Policy paper

Foreword and executive summary

Published 12 September 2023

1. Foreword

Alun Francis OBE, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission

Improving social mobility is our priority, and we want to make sure that initiatives are targeted at the right people and based on effective, evidence-based practice.

The starting point of this is high-quality information. As you will see in this report, we have collated a wealth of data that illustrates the successes and challenges for social mobility. This year, we have taken a more detailed look at the impact of geographical differences and  protected characteristics such as sex, ethnicity and disability. We will also produce an accompanying policy and strategy paper that outlines how we plan to address the challenges identified by our research.

1.1 Background

In our State of the Nation report in 2022 we showed that social mobility in the UK is not in decline and that the UK is not a low-mobility country. Of course there is still room for improvement. But an exaggerated picture of gloom shouldn’t be our motivation for change.

We also argued that conventional approaches to social mobility have been too narrow, tending to define ‘the social mobility problem’ as one of equal access to professional and managerial occupations. This analysis has serious weaknesses, which are illustrated by the findings from this report and outlined below.

The traditional approach focuses too much on the university route, pathways to professional careers, and long leaps in social mobility. But we need a wider focus.  Thinking only about access to top professional jobs neglects far too many of those at the bottom.

There are many people who can’t, or simply don’t want to, take this route. Some don’t want to move to a big city to get a top professional job. Some aren’t in a position to achieve that kind of long-upwards mobility – they may have left school without basic levels of reading or maths. For people in these positions, offers of internships at a top London law firm may be missing the point. Good, accessible, local jobs must be part of our mobility picture.

Along with the narrow focus on professional pathways, there is too much emphasis on improving relative mobility – the mobility chances of one social group relative to another. This is important, but one group’s relative gain must be another group’s relative loss. We argue that it is equally important, if not more so, to think about improving absolute mobility – increasing the total amount of opportunity available, so that more people can move upwards – whether that is measured in occupational status, income, or other measures.

Moreover, while relative mobility has remained stable, there is evidence to suggest there are some concerning changes in absolute mobility, partly in terms of occupation, but more in terms of income. We must think about how to tackle this, ideally by growing the economy so that opportunities can increase and wages can rise, especially in areas where growth has been weak.

It is important to deal with the slowing growth in professional jobs in the UK so that more people can move up the occupational ladder. We must broaden our view of what type of technical and professional skills are in demand in the labour market. Most of all, it means making sure that the next generation can look forward to good mobility prospects, just as previous generations have.

Data constraints and limitations often lead to poor definitions of social mobility and misdiagnosis of where the problems actually lie. One constraint is that we can only look at group averages in our reporting. Not everyone in a disadvantaged group will do poorly, but some will. Interventions that are based on this data need to be better targeted to those who have the worst prospects. We must not lose sight of the truly disadvantaged.

The traditional approach also tends to ignore culture and values as drivers of social mobility. Their impact should not be underestimated, but they are difficult to measure.

Our data shows very clear inequalities across the country, captured in our regional analysis of the mobility rates and drivers. But the findings illustrate the nuance and complexity of social mobility. For example, they show patterns that do not simply associate the location of elite professions with the need to ‘move out to move up’. We want people to be able to remain where they grew up, if they want to, with access to the same opportunities they would get elsewhere.

The research also suggests a one-size-fits-all approach based on educational achievement does not work. Other factors, such as economic opportunity, the quality of jobs and wages, may be just as important. We are particularly interested in the relationship between social mobility and economic innovation, as this appears to be very important to a strong and fair economy.

1.2 What are we doing differently?

We have no intention of abandoning the focus on the areas of policy that the conventional approach takes. Instead, our fresh approach champions a broader view of social mobility to benefit a wider variety of people in a wider range of places.

Our programme, as set out in the accompanying paper to this report, will ask more rigorous questions about the nature of advantage and disadvantage, how far there is ‘stickiness’ at the top and bottom, what the sources of this may be, and what effective interventions look like. We also want to push further on investigating ‘softer’ drivers like culture, values, and family attitudes towards a child’s aspirations to be socially mobile.

As well as taking a wider approach to social mobility, we have made progress in how we report on it. For example, we now break down outcomes and drivers by geography and protected characteristics. The report also groups the jobs people are currently doing and their ‘occupational background’ into 5 categories (higher and lower professional, intermediate, and high and lower working class), rather than the previous 3-class division.

This promises to open up a much more nuanced understanding of social mobility. It shows some important within-class differences with significantly weaker outcomes for the lower working class in comparison with the higher working class. For example, 21% of lower working-class young people are not in employment, education or training. This is significantly higher than all other socio-economic groups.

1.3 This year’s findings

The aim of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of social mobility across the life course, which is developed and updated each year. This year’s report extends and builds on the work we started in 2022 and contains important new elements. We have done this by looking at full mobility outcomes, intermediate (early-life) outcomes, and drivers, with breakdowns by geography and protected characteristics. The 3 main innovations this year:

New data relating to geography

Our regional analysis shows differences in both mobility and opportunity across the country. It is worrying that social mobility outcomes not only depend on who your parents are, your education, and your skills, but also where you grew up. The data shows why it’s just as important to look within areas as it is between them, and the picture isn’t as simple as a north-south divide. For example, someone growing up in London and adjoining areas is more likely to attain high qualifications, earnings and occupational level than someone from the same socio-economic background (SEB) growing up in a more rural or remote area. Yet, for the same 2 individuals, the risk of unemployment, economic inactivity, and lower working-class employment is also higher in London. So the spread of outcomes, from high to low, is much greater in London, and simply looking at averages or single outcomes would hide this.

New data relating to ethnicity and differences between men and women

There are some marked differences in group outcomes, with Chinese, Indian and Black African, for example, doing much better in education than Black Caribbean and White British people. For example, people from Chinese, Indian, Black African, Mixed and Other ethnic groups are more likely to obtain degrees than White British and Black Caribbean people from the same SEB, although their degrees may come from less selective universities. Yet these better educational outcomes don’t always yield better occupational outcomes. For example, several ethnic minority groups (Black Caribbean, Black African, Mixed, Pakistani and Indian) are more likely to be unemployed than White British young people from the same SEB.

There are also a variety of important nuances in terms of sex and gender. We find gaps in favour of young women in education, but gaps in favour of young men in earnings. Across SEBs, women have a greater likelihood of attaining a first degree and are correspondingly less likely to have lower-level qualifications than men. However, young women are less likely than young men to be in higher professional occupations, and they earn less on average.

New data relating to disability

Our analysis shows that people with a disability do significantly worse across all outcomes. In some cases, the gap is even wider among those from a lower working-class background, suggesting that professional families are better able to mitigate the effects of disability on young people’s life chances.

You can find out more about what we’re doing about these findings in our forthcoming policy paper. Here, we will outline where we believe we should be focusing social mobility interventions to make real change, based on what our evidence tells us. This will include an in-depth analysis of our policy recommendations.

1.4 Conclusion

We are making progress with our ambition to ground the national debate about social mobility in the evidence. And we are asking harder questions about the focus of interventions. Over time we will work toward a new approach to a national strategy. Our focus will be on long-term, systematic approaches, which the evidence says need to b pursued relentlessly.

In the meantime, we will continue to deliver against our ambitious business plan to bring serious change to improve social mobility across the UK. To find out more about what we are planning, we are also publishing a policy paper that discusses in depth how we will address the challenges identified in this report.

2. Executive summary

2.1 Chapter 1

This year, we have delivered on the plan set out in 2022, to put the full Social Mobility Index into operation. We have done this by looking at full mobility outcomes, intermediate (early-life) outcomes, and drivers, but with breakdowns by geography and protected characteristics where possible. As in 2022, mobility outcomes are about progress from your starting point in life to your outcomes as an adult. These outcomes can be in your occupation, income, education, housing or wealth. Intermediate outcomes are measured earlier in life, typically when people are in their 20s or even earlier. Drivers are the background conditions that help or hinder social mobility – things like access to good-quality education or social capital.

2.2 Chapter 2

Our analysis of mobility outcomes builds on last year’s report, which looked at trends over time. We do this by examining the different mobility rates in different groups and places in the UK. As might be expected, we have found that adults with lower working-class parents are about 3 times as likely – 30% against 11% – to be in a lower working-class occupation themselves compared to adults with higher professional parents. In education, people whose parents had degrees are far more likely – 64% against 18% – to get a degree  than those whose parents had no qualifications. And on housing mobility, we have found a significant tightening of the link between parental home ownership and children’s home ownership. Worryingly, your parents’ ownership of their home has become a much better predictor of whether or not you will own yours.

But the breakdowns reveal many variations inside this high-level pattern. For example, women are less likely than men to experience upward occupational mobility, even though their educational outcomes are better. Similarly, educational mobility is far better among some ethnic groups – for example, 64% of Chinese-British people whose parents had no degree went on to obtain a degree, compared with only 28% among White British people. Yet these better educational outcomes are not always mirrored by improved access to professional jobs. And unfortunately, the mobility outcomes of people with a disability are consistently worse than the outcomes of those without, across occupation, income, education and housing.

The geographical patterns are equally striking. People of a working-class background who grew up in Outer London (West and North) had a 46% chance of becoming professionals, while those growing up in Northern Ireland had only a 28% chance. Meanwhile, London and the South East appear to be particularly disadvantaged in terms of absolute housing mobility.

2.3 Chapter 3

Intermediate outcomes compare people’s starting point with an earlier endpoint in their teens, 20s, or early 30s, as they move through education and into the labour market. We have significantly improved our index this year by adopting a 5-class measure of socio-economic background (SEB) rather than the original 3-class measure used in the 2022 report. We have also split these indicators by region and some protected characteristics, like sex, ethnicity, and disability. Putting all this together provides us with a more detailed picture of how social mobility might trend in the future. Our analysis has revealed striking patterns, both in geography and in individual characteristics.

Two individuals from the same SEB are likely to have different outcomes depending on where in the UK they grew up. For example, someone growing up in London is more likely to attain higher qualifications, higher earnings and a professional job than someone from the same SEB who grew up in a more rural or remote area. At the same time, the risk of unemployment, economic inactivity, and lower working-class employment is also higher in London. This contrast shows the importance of looking within areas, as well as between areas.

Breakdowns by individual characteristics show a wide variety in outcomes across different groups of people. Unfortunately, as we found with mobility outcomes, people with a disability tend to do worse on all intermediate outcomes that we measure, including educational attainment, income, and employment. Crucially, the gap between those with a disability and those without is also larger among those from a working-class background.

When we look at ethnicity, the picture is complex. Overall, people from all ethnicities (apart from Black Caribbean) are more likely to gain a degree than White British people from the same SEB, although their degrees may come from less selective universities. As with the findings in Chapter 2, such educational success does not always translate into greater success in work. Some people, such as those from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black African ethnicities, are more likely to become university graduates than White British people, but less likely to work in a professional job. Another interesting finding is that SEB seems to play a smaller role in determining outcomes for some ethnic groups, such as those from Chinese, Bangladeshi and Pakistani groups.

When we look at differences by sex, we find that across all SEBs measured, women tend to do better than men when it comes to educational attainment. However, once in the workplace, this gap reverses, with women from the same SEB earning less than men, being less likely to be in a higher professional job and more likely to be economically inactive. We note that some of these differences may reflect a difference in career choices.

2.4 Chapter 4

Our drivers capture the background conditions which enable social mobility in the future. When we measure social mobility outcomes today, we note the factors which shaped these outcomes may have occurred decades ago. This is because what happens earlier in life helps shape our future outcomes.

We find that, despite the significant setbacks of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still encouraging signs for the future of social mobility in the UK.

Overall, more parents are educated to university level and working in professional occupations. More young people are in education, and fewer are not in employment, education or training. Meanwhile, people in their 20s participate in a more favourable job market, with more working in professional jobs compared with only 10 years ago.

However, relative child poverty has slightly risen since 2012, while young people’s pay only recovered to the levels seen before the financial crisis in 2021, before falling again in 2022. Levels of social trust in the UK are low and have been for at least 20 years.

As with our mobility outcomes and intermediate outcomes, it is crucial to understand how drivers are distributed across the country. We find that there is no simple pattern across richer and poorer areas. In particular, London has both high levels of sociocultural advantage, and high levels of poverty and disadvantage. So any area-based approach to tackling social mobility must also consider the variation within areas.