The Direct Effect of Social Origins on Social Mobility Chances:‘Glass Floors’ and ‘Glass Ceilings’ in Britain

In this article we pursue, using appropriate British birth cohort data, various issues that arise from recent research into the ‘direct’ effect of social origins on individuals’ social mobility chances: i.e. the effect that is not mediated by education and that can be seen as giving rise to non-meritocratic ‘glass floors’ and ‘glass ceilings’. We show that if educational level is determined at labour market entry, class destinations are significantly associated with class origins independently of education. However, we go on to investigate how far the direct effect may be underestimated by an insufficiently comprehensive treatment of social origins, and also how far it may be overestimated by a failure to take into account the effects of later-life education and resulting changes in individuals’ relative qualification levels. Finally, having arrived at our best estimates of the extent of the direct effect, we seek to identify factors that mediate it. While individuals’ cognitive ability and sense of locus of control prove to play some part, reported parental help in the labour market does not appear to be of any great importance. Some implications of our findings both for further research and for the ideal of an education-based meritocracy are considered

Social Disparities in Private Renting Amongst Young Families in England and Wales, 2001-2011

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Taylor & Francis via https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2016.1242511In Britain, the proportion of young families living in the private rented sector (PRS) has risen sharply in recent years. There is mounting concern that this trend could be particularly pronounced amongst less advantaged young families, who may be disproportionately channelled into relatively costly, insecure and lower quality accommodation in the PRS by growing difficulties accessing other tenures. In consequence, this paper uses the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales to compare how family structure and socio-economic characteristics shaped rates of private renting amongst young adults heading families in 2001 and 2011. The results show that social disparities generally increased during this period as private renting expanded most rapidly amongst some types of lone parent and amongst young adults heading couple families with a less advantaged class position. Increasing housing inequalities between young people may thus be as much a feature of “Generation Rent” as deepening divides between generations.This work was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders award [grant number ES/L009498/1]. Additional financial support was provided by the Isaac Newton Trust

Social class origin and assortative mating in Britain, 1949-2010

This article examines trends in assortative mating in Britain over the last 60 years. Assortative mating is the tendency for like to form a conjugal partnership with like. Our focus is on the association between the social class origins of the partners. The propensity towards assortative mating is taken as an index of the openness of society which we regard as a macro level aspect of social inequality. There is some evidence that the propensity for partners to come from similar class backgrounds declined during the 1960s. Thereafter, there was a period of 40 years of remarkable stability during which the propensity towards assortative mating fluctuated trendlessly within quite narrow limits. This picture of stability over time in social openness parallels the well-established facts about intergenerational social class mobility in Britain

A Disadvantaged Childhood Matters More If Local Unemployment is High

Using multilevel models on the German Socio-Economic Panel Study this paper shows that disadvantaged young adults (16-35 years old) are more affected by the business cycle than their similarly educated counterparts from more advantaged backgrounds. We propose that a disadvantaged background lowers desirability on the labour market, which matters more to employers as the labour market tightens. When the local unemployment rate is high, young adults from adisadvantaged background are less likely to be hired for good jobs or hired at all than their more advantaged counterparts. These results are robust to different operationalisations and sibling fixed effects

Cumulative inequalities over the life-course: Life-long learning and social mobility in Britain

This paper examines the possibility that life-long learning promotes intergenerational class mobility. The following two research questions are asked. Is it the case that further education provides individuals coming from less advantaged origins with a second chance to improve on their educational attainment? Is it the case that the returns to further qualifications, in terms of chances of upward class career mobility, are greater for children from less advantaged backgrounds than for children from more advantaged backgrounds? The analyses – that are based on the complete educational and class histories of men and women in a British birth cohort – mainly produce negative findings. Children coming from managerial and professional backgrounds seem to benefit most from further education. More specifically, further education appears to be an effective means of career advancement for individuals of managerial and professional origins who start out in their working lives in relatively low level class positions. Via further education they can increase or update their qualifications, and in turn enhance their chances of being counter-mobile back to their class of origin. Overall, based on the findings of this paper, we can conclude that qualifications attained through life-long learning primarily serve to maintain, rather than to narrow, inequalities attached to social origins in Britain

Cumulative inequalities over the life-course: Life-long learning and social mobility in Britain

This paper examines the possibility that life-long learning promotes intergenerational class mobility. The following two research questions are asked. Is it the case that further education provides individuals coming from less advantaged origins with a second chance to improve on their educational attainment? Is it the case that the returns to further qualifications, in terms of chances of upward class career mobility, are greater for children from less advantaged backgrounds than for children from more advantaged backgrounds? The analyses – that are based on the complete educational and class histories of men and women in a British birth cohort – mainly produce negative findings. Children coming from managerial and professional backgrounds seem to benefit most from further education. More specifically, further education appears to be an effective means of career advancement for individuals of managerial and professional origins who start out in their working lives in relatively low level class positions. Via further education they can increase or update their qualifications, and in turn enhance their chances of being counter-mobile back to their class of origin. Overall, based on the findings of this paper, we can conclude that qualifications attained through life-long learning primarily serve to maintain, rather than to narrow, inequalities attached to social origins in Britain

Intergenerational class mobility in industrial and post-industrial societies: towards a general theory

A large body of often rather complex findings on intergenerational social mobility has by now come into existence but theoretical development has not kept pace. In this paper, focusing specifically on class mobility in European nations and the US, we aim, first of all, to identify the main empirical regularities that have emerged from research, making the now standard distinction between absolute and relative mobility. Next, we review previous theories of mobility, leading up to what we label as the liberal theory, and we note the difficulties now evident with the latter, associated with its functionalist basis. We then set out our own theory of intergenerational class mobility, grounded in the subjectively rational courses of action followed by the various actors involved. We seek to show how the empirical regularities described can in this way be accounted for, while pointing to additional evidence that supports the theory but also to ways in which it is open to further empirical test. Finally, we consider some more general implications of the theory and, on this basis, venture a number of – conditional – predictions on the future of class mobility in more advanced societies

Elite Studies: for a new approach

After a period in which interest in elites among social scientists went into decline, elite studies are now reviving. But it is important to understand why the decline occurred. We critically examine the largely contradictory explanations put forward by Scott and Savage and their related proposals for new research. We suggest an alternative approach that, we believe, would prove more rewarding. This entails treating elites quite extensively, but understood as small-N entities, clearly distinct from social classes. On this basis, elites can be characterised through prosopographical methods – the construction of collective biographies of their members. More reliable accounts can thus be produced of the social composition of different elites and in turn questions addressed of how far skewness in their recruitment results from the processes through which they are formally constituted and how far from the composition of the ‘pools’ from which their recruitment primarily occurs. Further questions follow of the implications not only for equality of opportunity but also for the wastage of talent and loss of diversity in elite memberships and for the so far neglected issue of the quality and the effectiveness of elites in whatever field they exist

Intergenerational class mobility of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s

This study examines over-time trends in intergenerational class mobility based on cohorts of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s. We calculate absolute and relative mobility rates, separately for men and women, using the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2016), the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2016), and the UK Labour Force Survey (2014–2017). Regarding absolute mobility, we find marked country differences in upward and downward rates. In Germany, downward mobility decreased, while upward mobility rose. In the UK, downward mobility increased, while upward mobility declined. We provide evidence that these differences can be linked to contrasting changes in the distribution of origin and destination classes. Regarding relative mobility, striking country similarities appear. For both countries, we observe increases in social fluidity for respondents entering the labour market during the 1950s and 1960s that cease to continue for cohorts thereafter. Comparisons between adjacent cohorts do not provide evidence that social fluidity follows cyclical developments of the economy or shorter-term volatilities in the labour market