The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Social mobility
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08/08/2012
Parental wealth key to children’s outcomes
Parental wealth is positively associated with a wide range of outcomes for children in early adulthood, according to a paper from the London School of Economics.
The study claims to provide the first UK estimates for the associations between parental wealth during adolescence and various children’s outcomes in early adulthood (at age 25), based on data from the British Household Panel Survey.
Category: Reports -
21/06/2012
Social Mobility and Child Poverty Review: Consultation Response
In this consultation response, the PSE: UK research team is highly critical of the Coalition government’s social mobility strategy and, in particular, its claim that the best way to tackle intergenerational mobility is to break the ‘the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next’. The PSE policy working paper dismisses the idea that poverty is ‘transmitted’ between generations as ‘simply incorrect’ and argues that the best way to tackle intergenerational disadvantage and low social mobility is to eradicate poverty among children and adults. Read a summary.
Category: Policy response -
21/06/2012
Government’s social mobility strategy ‘flawed’
The government’s social mobility strategy is based on a flawed understanding of the available evidence, according to a think-tank report. Britain is not a meritocracy but it does no worse than the average internationally.
The Civitas report disputes much of what political parties commonly say on the issue of social mobility.
Category: Reports -
13/06/2012
Does social housing harm social mobility?
There is no evidence that social housing harms social mobility, according to a taskforce of MPs and peers. Nonetheless, there are risks in stigmatising social housing and the people who live in social houses.
The cross-party taskforce looked at how housing policy can be used to promote social mobility. It found that:
Category: Reports -
07/06/2012
Indicators of Access to Cultural Resources, Education and Skills for the PSE Survey
This paper discusses indicators relating to Domain 4 (‘Cultural Resources’) and Domain 7 (‘Cultural Participation’) of the revised Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix (BSEM) for use in the current Poverty and Social Exclusion survey. In the BSEM, education is treated as a resource as well as an aspect of cultural participation. Questions in the PSE survey therefore need to cover both the educational resources (human capital) of the adults in the survey, i.e. their educational background, and the educational resources currently received by children.
Category: Methods development -
31/05/2012
Fair access to professions – progress report
The government’s social mobility ‘tsar’ has said middle-class professions such as law, journalism and medicine need to do more to widen their social intake.
Former Labour minister Alan Milburn (appointed by the government as ‘Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty’) has issued a report after looking at progress on widening access to professional careers since his previous report in 2009. He says that:
Category: Reports -
22/05/2012
Social mobility strategy – progress report
The government has published a progress report on its social mobility strategy (launched in April 2011). It highlights a doubling of free early education places for disadvantaged children aged 2, the ‘pupil premium’ to help support the most disadvantaged young people through school, and the ‘youth contract’ to help young people needing extra help to earn or learn.
The report also sets out plans to publish a series of ‘trackers’ to monitor annually the impact of policies to tackle social mobility. These indicators will include:
Category: Reports -
10/05/2012
‘Deprivation is not destiny’ declares Education Secretary
The Secretary of State for Education has said he rejects the argument that pupil achievement is overwhelmingly dictated by socio-economic factors – or that schools are powerless to help children succeed if they were born into poverty, disability, or disadvantage.
Michael Gove, in a speech at a leading private school, began by saying he finds it ‘remarkable’ how many positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power are held by people who were privately educated. He said:
Category: News stories -
01/05/2012
Early years ‘key’ to social mobility
An all-party group of MPs has said the point of greatest ‘leverage’ for social mobility is what happens to children between ages 0 and 3, primarily in the home. They add that it is also possible to improve social mobility through education – the most important controllable factor being the quality of teaching received.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility is aiming to produce a final report by the end of 2012. Its interim report summarises the evidence it has heard so far. It distils this into seven ‘key truths’, as follows:
Category: Reports -
05/04/2012
Deputy Prime Minister launches social mobility strategy
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has launched the Coalition government’s social mobility strategy, Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers. The strategy focuses on inter-generational social mobility, with the aim of ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to get a better job than their parents.
The approach moves away from income measures to support disadvantaged families to family intervention and an aspiration to extend pre-school provision to disadvantaged two-year-olds.
The report outlines five broad principles that underpin the government’s approach.
Category: Reports
