The postwar dream of doing better in life than your parents has faded, with the UK now a country where opportunities for upward social mobility and economic advancement are increasingly limited, research has claimed.
It contrasts with the golden age of social mobility enjoyed by the UK in the early years of the Queen’s reign when an expanding economy allowed a generation to take professional jobs and own their own homes.
But today, as the monarch celebrates her platinum jubilee, the social mobility prospects of disadvantaged young people are bleak, said the research.
“For generations growing up in the early 21st century, the dream of just doing better in life, let alone climbing the income ladder, is disappearing,” concluded the analysis by thinktank the Sutton Trust.
The “room at the top” that opened up for the platinum jubilee generation born in the 1950s, who benefited from the postwar expansion of the welfare state, has shrunk, it said. For many, the chances of moving down the class structure are now greater than their chances of moving up it.
“This new research shows how far opportunities are still determined by background, and shockingly predicts a fall in income mobility for poorer young people, driven by the impact of the pandemic and, more recently, the cost of living crisis,” said Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust.
The study highlighted how housing tenure during childhood has become an increasingly important indicator of wealth mobility, noting that the overall decline in UK home ownership over the past two decades has disproportionately affected those from poorer backgrounds.
Of people born in 1958 who grew up in rented accommodation, 74% had become homeowners by the age of 42. This boom in property ownership mobility had reversed sharply by 2017. By then, just 51% of 42-year-olds raised in rented housing were homeowners.
By contrast, among those whose parents owned the house they lived in, the decline in homeownership was much less marked. In 2000, 88% of 42-year-olds born to home-owning parents were themselves homeowners, a proportion that had fallen to just 81% by 2017.
Social mobility for underprivileged young people today has been undermined by the pandemic, especially those children who lost out on hours of school learning during lockdown. “If learning losses for current generations are not offset, there looks to be bleak consequences for social mobility,” says the research.
It noted that children in the top 20% of wealthiest families were up to 14 percentage points more likely to have had paid tutors to supplement their education than those whose parents have low incomes. This, says the report, is an example of “stark divides” in home environments and parental investments that “do not bode well for future social mobility levels”.
Lee Elliot Major, co-author of the study and professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “It is increasingly clear that stark learning losses, suffered disproportionately by poorer pupils during the pandemic, will leave long term scars for current generations. Unless radical action is taken, our research suggests they face worsening mobility prospects.”
