Origin, education and destination– an analysis of social mobility in Britain (1991-2005)

For presentation atEducation and Employers Taskforce research conference 2011

exploring social mobility and delivery mechanisms in international perspective

 12 October: University of Warwick

Yaojun Li and Fiona DevineSchool of Social SciencesManchester University, UK

Yaojun.Li@Manchester.ac.uk Fiona.Devine@Manchester.ac.uk

Aims of this presentationTo explore patterns of intergenerational

educational and class mobility in Britain 1991 - 2005;

To assess the extent of class differences in the two areas and the direction of change;

To bridge the differences in academic and political understanding of mobility;

To see where the government and society could do better to improve social equality and social inclusion

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Why should we be concerned?• A fair society is the life-blood of democracy and

our shared future;

• A fair society has equal life chances for all regardless of family origin, gender and other ascribed factors;

• A fair society is characterised by meritocracy (ability and effort) but ascribed meritocracy may be a better description of social reality?

• How much inequality is there in our society, and

• In what direction is it changing?3

An ideal scenario

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Education

Origin Destination Notes

1. The dotted lines indicate weakening association and the solid line indicates strengthening association.

Why shall we be concerned with OED

• Because family classes play a very important role in E and D

• We might not be able to change E-D very much but changing the O-E relations, we might hopefully bring about more mobility in E and then in D

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Debates in mobility research• Academics talk about absolute and relative mobility but

considerable differences among themselves

• Policy-makers, the media and the general public tend to view mobility as upward mobility only

• A truly fair and equal society includes both upward mobility for working class children (where policy can have a difference) and downward mobility for middle-class children (where policy cannot do much)

• Greater upward mobility will increase social fluidity even though downward mobility remains at a similar level

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Competing theses of mobility

• Constant social fluidity (Goldthorpe 1987; Goldthorpe and Mills 2004, 2008; Goldthorpe and Jackson 2007) t1 tn

• Declining social mobility (Blanden et al 2005)t1 tn

• Signs of increasing social fluidity (Heath and Payne 2000; Lambert et al 2007; Li and Devine 2011)

t1 tn

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Why the differences• Economists use family income data put in quantiles

and thus relativise the analysis from the start, unable to differentiate absolute and relative mobility

• Sociologists use class-based models with attention to both absolute and relative mobility (but with the main focus on relative mobility expressed in odds ratios, however, those models do not allow multiple continuous covariates to be included--loglinear and log multiplicative layer-effects or UNIDIFF)

• Data consistency also affects conclusions reached among sociologists

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Data for this analysis The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)

1991 The General Household Survey (GHS) 2005 These are the best data sources currently available: Nationally representative social surveys with large samples Consistent coding for father’s, mother’s and respondent’s

class in National Statistics Social-economic Classification (NS-SeC) allowing for theoretically-guided recoding: dominance approach to parental class and putting lower-grade routine-non-manual (IIIb) to unskilled manual routine class (VIIab) for both parental and respondent’s classes

BHPS has parental and respondent’s class for all aged 16+ GHS has only parental class data for respondents aged 25-65 We therefore use data for men 25-65 and women 25-63

The O-E-D links

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Education

Origin Destination Notes

1. The dotted lines indicate weakening association and the solid line indicates strengthening association.

The O-E link

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1991 Tert Sec Prim Men Higher salariat 68 23 10 Lower salariat 49 33 18 Intermediate 49 30 21 Small employer/own account 36 27 36 Lower supervisory/technical 28 32 40 Semi-routine 21 28 51 Routine 18 27 54 All 34 29 37 N 992 871 1,063

The O-E link

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2005 Tert Sec Prim Men Higher salariat 64 29 7 Lower salariat 47 38 15 Intermediate 38 48 14 Small employer/own account 27 41 33 Lower supervisory/technical 26 43 30 Semi-routine 22 46 32 Routine 21 40 39 All 35 40 24 N 1,510 1,762 1,054

The O-E link

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1991 Tert Sec Prim Women Higher salariat 61 26 13 Lower salariat 43 33 24 Intermediate 32 38 30 Small employer/own account 21 34 45 Lower supervisory/technical 19 31 49 Semi-routine 14 30 56 Routine 13 24 63 All 25 31 44 N 803 980 1,351

The O-E link

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2005 Tert Sec Prim Women Higher salariat 64 29 7 Lower salariat 49 37 14 Intermediate 41 46 13 Small employer/own account 27 43 30 Lower supervisory/technical 23 42 35 Semi-routine 22 42 36 Routine 19 39 41 All 35 39 26 N 1,633 1,865 1,216

Summary of the O-E link• Great class differences in education for both

men and women

• There are also signs of class differences on the decline. Class I and VII differences in tertiary education fell from 50 to 43 percentage points (68% v 18%; 64% v 21%) for men, and from 48 to 45 points for women (61% v 13%; 64% v 19%)

• Reduced gender differences (34% to 35% for men; 25% to 35% for women)

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The O-D link

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1991 Salariat Intermediate Working class Men Higher salariat 70 19 11 Lower salariat 56 28 15 Intermediate 50 30 20 Small employer/own account 33 44 23 Lower supervisory/technical 32 35 32 Semi-routine 25 34 41 Routine 23 38 39 All 37 34 29 N 1,089 1,009 828

The O-D link

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2005 Salariat Intermediate Working class Men Higher salariat 68 18 14 Lower salariat 54 26 20 Intermediate 52 29 19 Small employer/own account 36 36 28 Lower supervisory/technical 38 32 30 Semi-routine 33 32 35 Routine 31 32 37 All 44 29 27 N 1,948 1,247 1,131

The O-D link

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1991 Salariat Intermediate Working class Women Higher salariat 61 25 14 Lower salariat 42 32 26 Intermediate 31 40 29 Small employer/own account 23 37 40 Lower supervisory/technical 24 35 41 Semi-routine 19 28 53 Routine 20 28 52 All 29 32 39 N 901 1,011 1,222

The O-D link

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2005 Salariat Intermediate Working class Women Higher salariat 68 18 14 Lower salariat 54 26 20 Intermediate 52 29 19 Small employer/own account 36 36 28 Lower supervisory/technical 38 32 30 Semi-routine 33 32 35 Routine 31 32 37 All 44 29 27 N 1,948 1,247 1,131

Summary of the O-D link• Again great class differences for both men and

women, in class attainment

• There are also signs of class differences on the decline. Class I and VII differences in access to salariat positions fell from 47 to 37 percentage points (70% v 23%; 68% v 31%) for men, and from 41 to 31 points for women (61% v 20%; 56% v 25%)

• Reduced gender differences (37% to 44% for men; 29% to 39% for women)

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The E-D link

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1991 Salariat Intermediate Working class Men Degree+ 89 9 2 Sub-degree 58 29 13 A Levels 44 41 15 O Levels or equivalent 31 38 32 Primary 11 47 41 No qualifications 9 40 51 All 37 34 29

The E-D link

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2005 Salariat Intermediate Working class Men Degree+ 81 12 7 Sub-degree 64 24 12 A Levels 44 37 19 O Levels or equivalent 30 38 32 Primary 23 33 44 No qualifications 10 35 56 All 44 29 27

The E-D link

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1991 Salariat Intermediate Working class Women Degree+ 84 11 5 Sub-degree 63 22 15 A Levels 26 48 26 O Levels or equivalent 21 45 34 Primary 11 40 49 No qualifications 8 27 65 (All) 29 32 39

The E-D link

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2005 Salariat Intermediate Working class Women Degree+ 80 12 8 Sub-degree 62 20 18 A Levels 34 33 33 O Levels or equivalent 24 31 46 Primary 18 36 45 No qualifications 8 21 71 (All) 39 24 37

Summary of the E-D link

• Expected educational differences for both men and women in class attainment

• There are also signs of educational differences on the decline. Differences between degree-holders and those with no qualifications in access to salariat positions fell from 80 to 71 percentage points for men, and from 76 to 72 points for women

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Figure 2 Changes in the overall O-E-D associations (1991-2005) Men Women E E O

D

O

D

-2.4% -1.7%

-1.6% -2.3%

-4.1% -1.8%

Summary of trends in relative mobilities

• Weakening O-E and O-D links for men and women

• Unchanging E-D links

• The meritocratic ideal is not substantiated

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Which part do the changes occur?

• MenO-E: Classes II-IVO-D: Class IIE-D: Degree holdersO-E-D: Classes I-II, Degree-holder, but non-

significant

• WomenO-D: Class I;E-D: Degree holder

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An example of O-E

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Degree Sub-degree

A O Primary None

Men 1991 Higher salariat 41 27 11 12 4 6 Lower salariat 22 28 16 17 6 11 Intermediate 20 29 14 15 8 13 Small employer 11 25 11 16 7 29 Supervisory/technical 5 23 12 19 11 29 Semi-routine 5 17 8 20 12 39 Routine 2 16 9 18 12 43

An example of O-E

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Degree Sub-degree

A O Primary None

Men 1991 Higher salariat 55 9 14 14 3 4 Lower salariat 36 11 17 21 5 10 Intermediate 28 11 20 28 5 9 Small employer 17 10 16 24 8 25 Supervisory/technical 16 10 16 27 9 21 Semi-routine 13 9 16 30 9 23 Routine 11 10 17 23 7 32

Conclusion• Great origin class differences in people’s

education and occupational attainment• The origin effects have reduced slightly, giving

some hopes that progress could be made• Government can do more to help the most

disadvantaged to have better education by reducing fees, getting rid of NEETs

• Employers could provide or fund more on-job training to help the poorly-educated to have better skills, to give them a second chance

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Many thanks and suggestions warmly welcome

Yaojun.Li@manchester.ac.uk

Fiona.Devine@manchester.ac.uk

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Loglinear and UNIDIFF Models

1 Baseline model (conditional independence)

logFijk = µ + λiO + λj

D + λkY + λik

OY + λjkDY

2 Constant Social Fluidity model (CSF) logFijk = µ + λi

O + λjD + λk

Y + λikOY + λjk

DY + λijOD

3 Log multiplicative or uniform difference (Unidiff) model logFijk = µ + λi

O + λjD + λk

Y + λikOY + λjk

DY + λijOD+ βkXij

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How to account for the lack of progress in social mobility?

– A Rational Action Theory explanation for a Social Advantage and Disadvantage story

‘In terms of individuals of differing class origins pursuing ‘mobility strategies’ that, while rationally adaptive to the constraints typical of their class situations, tend in their aggregate outcome to maintain relative rates unaltered, at all events in the absence of any external modification of these constraints that would constitute a reduction – or an increase – in class-lined inequalities of condition’ (Goldthorpe and Mills, 2004: 223).

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