What Britain has learned about social mobility

Read more of Prospect's writing on social mobility

Alan Milburn, the former Labour MP and chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, has released his latest "state of the nation" report—possibly the last one the committee will issue under its current remit. It assesses David Cameron's progress at building the "one nation" country he has said he will deliver. Here are four key takeaways from the report:

Moving the goalposts

As the report notes, the government wants to change the terms of commission so that it examines various aspects of social mobility but no longer covers child poverty. The report is highly critical of that aim, and says it is part of an attempt by the government to move its obligations away from reducing child poverty. "It has long been obvious that the existing child poverty targets are not going to be met. In fact they will be missed by a country mile. That is a matter of deep regret. A country that is the fifth richest in the world should not have 2.3 million children officially classified as poor," the report says, "it is not credible to try to improve the life chances of the poor without acknowledging the most obvious symptom of poverty, lack of money"

Fixed in place

"British society is not rigid," the report says, but then goes on to describe a society where—despite rising levels of absolute social mobility—most people don't move very far from the place where they were born. Relative social mobility relating to income has declined, the report says:  Of those born in the lowest income quartile in 1958, 31 per cent were in the poorest 25 per cent as adults, but of those from the poorest families in 1970, 38 per cent remain there as adults. Relative class mobility rates for women have improved a little, but they have flatlined for men. Overall, "adults are more likely to be wealthy if their parents are wealthy, and... this connection has strengthened over time."

Different countries

"It is only 100 miles from Norwich to St Albans, but they are like two different countries," the report says, describing a Britain in which disparity between the regions goes way beyond lazy notions of a "north/south divide". Men live three years longer in St Albans than in Norwich, while women live nearly two years longer. The average salary in St Albans is £32,595 compared to £19,382 in Norwich. In Portsmouth and Bracknell Forest, no children on Free School Meals went to a top university. The report doesn't give a figure for London but as I have written before, it is much higher. Children in the poorest areas are more likely to attend a weaker school.

Different chances

Ethnicity and gender strongly influence children's chances of a better life. "At school boys perform significantly worse than girls. In 2014, boys’ GCSE results were 10 percentage points worse than girls’ with 52 per cent of boys achieving five good GCSEs compared with 62 per cent of girls," the report says. "The best results were achieved by Chinese girls (79 per cent) and the worst by black Caribbean boys (39 per cent). In the world of work, the educational attainment gap between boys and girls is reversed, with men getting paid more than women, especially after the age of 30."