Nick Clegg’s social mobility claim
The claim
“Labour, despite 13 years of government, billions of pounds of investment and a plethora of initiatives, schemes and credits, appears to have failed to move the needle on social mobility.”
Nick Clegg, speech on social mobility, 18 August 2010
The analysis
A lot of rubbish has been talked in the past on Labour’s social mobility record – not least by David Cameron.
Today, though, Clegg seems to have done his homework, and makes a more measured claim.
Social mobility is a measurement of how someone’s career and life chances are determined by the job their parents did. In a society with high social mobility, the sons of cleaners and factory workers would go on to be doctors and lawyers. But many professions are dominated by the middle classes (think public school boys Cameron and Clegg running the country).
Although social mobility improved after the second world war, we know that things went downhill for children born in 1970. These kids were more likely to be affected by how well-off their parents were, than children born in 1958 (these are the two years for which comprehensive data was collected).
But did that downward trend continue? Researchers at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) also looked at the children of parents born in 1958 and in 1970 – so the next generation on from the previous research. These kids were born, on average, in 1985 and 1999.
In 2007, the academics looked at the children’s test scores and behaviour – things that are known to give a reasonable indication of later achievements – and compared these with how their parents had done. Their analysis found no evidence of a continued fall in social mobility – but no evidence that things were getting better, either.
That tallies with Clegg’s claim today – although the needle has stopped going down lately, it hasn’t jumped up. Or as Alan Milburn, the new government social mobility czar, put it last year, the “long-running decline in social mobility has bottomed out”.
But one of the problems with all this is that social mobility is tricky to measure. To really say with certainty how well Blair and Brown’s babies end up doing, we’d have to wait until well after the coalition’s term of government is a memory. Even a child born in 1997 won’t start a graduate career for another decade.
As well as this uncertainty, Dr Jo Blanden, one of the CEP researchers, said it wasn’t clear whether the coalition would do better.
“Clegg’s speech suggests his long-term goal is complete social mobility, which is ridiculously ambitious,” she told FactCheck. “We do know that a more equal society leads to greater social mobility – so there are questions about how the coalition will make society more equal at the same time as making cuts.”
The verdict
The difficulty in measuring social mobility with accuracy – not to mention the length of time that’s needed in order to give context to any research – means that while the deputy prime minister’s statement is on the right track it will be some time before we can say with confidence that Labour’s record in this area has failed outright.
There are 4 comments on this post
I agree with this analysis. There was a problem however with Labour’s efforts. They assumed that social mobility can only be improved by corresponding improvements targeted at the young. Here Labour missed a trick.
The X generation were seriously let down by the previous Conservative government. When Labour came to power, they rightly tried to prevent the same thing happening to future generations, but they were so blinded by this that they forgot to go back and correct the damage done to the X generation. Encouraging them to return to further education would have had a much more immediate impact which we could have seen today.
We were left on benefits and low paid jobs instead – essentially, left on the scrap-heap. There has been little or no help for us to improve our outcomes. Computer literacy courses and NVQs are fine, but they assume that this is the best our generation is capable of.
I am 38 (X generation) and have 10 years of unemployment (on and off) under my belt, much of it long term, and I am still waiting for a government to finally get round to helping me achieve to my potential.
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Charles, I agree with your analysis: it’ll take another ten or more years for Labour’s focus on young children to affect social mobility. That government should have invested in other routes to social mobility as well.
If you really have had such lengthy unemployment, I suggest you should change your environment and, maybe, your career aspirations too. Try emigration to another UK region or to Australia, USA or Canada where hard work is appreciated well ahead of qualifications.
Be as radical as you wish government to be!
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Its a difficult one to measure. I think if you have a pair of successful biological mums & dads your chances of a success full life & happy family are higher than if your from a dysfunctional family like mine. That’s why I don’t want any biological children myself its a risk I am not going to take. As well as I take the view planet is over populated & a nightmarish Malthusian future awaits. I am staying on fertility strike. Peter Miller Postal Worker from the sprawling Metropolis of Bristol
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Re: ‘My Story’: The Impact of My Social Mobility
(‘My Story’ – not attached. Summary is supplied below)
To me, ‘upward’ Social Mobility is the improvement of a cycle aimed at encouraging and inspiring peoples ideas to be put into practise. This, in turn, will motivate family members and communities to engage and follow this positive impact and thus minimise the dependency on Welfare Benefit and reducing numbers into the Criminal Justice system. In addition, for those who come from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds, this sense of belonging and interacting with this ‘upward mobility’ is what requires underpinning by the state.
I have produced a story ‘My Story’ that reflects the vast challenges I have experienced over a few years. As someone who has experienced a vulnerable and disadvantaged background, I am particularly as concerned about policy-making in this area to encourage social-mobility, as I am eager to play a significant part in mobilising a positive impact on people that will, ultimately, trigger an aspirational movement in communities.
‘My Story’ highlights me ‘getting their against all odds… only to be failed’. It informs the…
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