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Times Educational Supplement:
Social mobility prospects remain bleak, academic warns

10 December 2015

The prospects for improving social mobility for future generations remain bleak, an author of a key social study released a decade ago will warn. Stephen Machin, professor of economics and research director at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), will say today that an ''ever-escalating educational arms race'' has meant the middle classes have continued to find new ways to retain the upper-hand. Prof Machin was one of the authors of a seminal study in 2005, which concluded that social mobility in Britain, alongside the United States, was lower than any other developed country. The study, supported by the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, warned that many young people would remain stuck where their parents were if improvements were not made.

This article was published by the Times Educational Supplement on December 10, 2015
Link to article here

Related publications
Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America. A Report Supported by The Sutton Trust, Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin, April 2005
Social Mobility in Britain: Low and Falling, Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin. Article in CentrePiece, Volume 10, Issue 1, Spring 2005
Big ideas: intergenerational mobility, Jo Blanden. Article in CentrePiece, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2009

Related links
Stephen Machin webpage
Education and Skills Programme webpage
Labour Markets Programme webpage

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