Tackling Britain's Social Mobility Problem

7 November 2019

Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, London School of Economics

Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Speakers: Sanchia Berg (Today programme) and Lee Elliot Major (Sutton Trust).

Chair: Prof Stephen Machin (CEP, LSE)

What can we do to improve Britain's low social mobility - one of the most pressing issues facing young people growing up today? Boris Johnson continues a tradition that has stood for generations. Every Prime Minister since the end of World War Two who has attended an English University has attended just one institution: Oxford. Meanwhile 100,000s of children leave school each year without the basics to get on in life. Britain suffers from low social mobility. But how can we improve it? Our panel will discuss potential solutions, and you the audience will vote on the solution.

This event is part of the ESRC's Festival of Social Science. It is free to attend and open to all. Places are offered on a first-come-first-serve basis.

About the Speakers:

Sanchia Berg is s a senior BBC reporter/correspondent. She works on Radio 4's Today Programme and on BBC2's Newsnight, specialising in Education and Social Affairs.

Lee Elliot Major is Professor of Practice at the University of Exeter and former CEO of the Sutton Trust.

Stephen Machin is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

About the book:

Apart from the USA, Britain has the lowest social mobility in the Western world. The lack of movement in who gets where in society - particularly when people are stuck at the bottom and the top - costs the nation dear, both in terms of the unfulfilled talents of those left behind and an increasingly detached elite, disinterested in improvements that benefit the rest of society.

What can we do to improve Britain's low social mobility - one of the most pressing issues facing young people growing up today? The aim of this event is to encourage public debate about this key societal issue. Co-authors Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin will share findings from their best-selling Penguin book Social Mobility and Its Enemies and from new research to prompt a discussion of what can be done to improve social mobility that goes beyond the education sphere.

Publisher's website at: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306476/social-mobility/9780241317020.html

ESRC Festival of Social Science website

Participants are expected to adhere to the CEP Events Code of Conduct.

This event will take place in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE, 54 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3LJ.

The building is labelled NAB on the map.