Social mobility

Blog

Promarket:

American Slaveholders Lost Their Wealth but Kept Their Political Power

In new research, Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager, and Stephan Maurer examine how the abolition of slavery after the American Civil War affected the political influence of former slaveholders. Despite the blow to their economi...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

Andy Burnham's biggest challenge isn't Britain's old class system - it's the new one

Britain's new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is more "Evertonian" than "Etonian", notes Lee Elliot Major: with his working class roots and political identity rooted in North West England, he marks a radical break with the...Read more...

Blog

Transforming Society:

Five myths of meritocracy in the modern workplace

We like to believe that modern workplaces are meritocratic. The best ideas rise to the top. Hard work pays off. The most capable people succeed. But our research reveals a more complicated reality, write Lee Elliot Major...Read more...

Blog

HEPI:

The unseen ripples of human possibility: how undergraduate tutors could lead a new era of National Service

Lee Elliot Major argues for a national university volunteering service which could involve undergraduates tutoring pupils and spread to other forms of community action....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Degrees of choice

Bolder applications mean that private school pupils end up at better universities than their exam results predict...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Elite school students end up in better universities than expected, based on their grades

Students of private and grammar schools are over-represented in elite universities. While some of that is explained by better grades, therse is also a degree of mismatch between how well students do in exams and the qual...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Following in the family footsteps: Incidence and returns of occupational persistence

Children often follow their parents into the same occupations. However, evidence on the economic returns of occupational persistence is scarce and understanding these outcomes and their unequal prevalence across social s...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

How does housing affect educational outcomes? Evidence from the UK's Right to Buy scheme

Right-to-Buy gave tenants of local authority owned 'council' houses the chance to own their home. The policy, which began in 1980, has been criticised for increasing inequality in the housing market, but Richard Disney a...Read more...

Government consultation

Social mobility policy

This submission argues for a new model of social mobility that recognises and values all forms of talent - academic, vocational, and creative - and helps people to lead decent lives, wherever they live, whatever their ba...Read more...

Government consultation

Social mobility policy committee

To ensure inclusivity in the post-16 education system, the government must guarantee a clear progression route for the "other 50 per cent" of young people who are not on the academic track. The government should introduc...Read more...

Government consultation

Education committee - Further education and skills

The further education sector is currently navigating a series of reforms and challenges. In this inquiry the Education Committee will explore these issues and other pressures currently facing the further education sector...Read more...

Blog

LSE Inequalities:

A class apart: prime ministers' origins profoundly impact their political worldviews

The background of our Prime Ministers hugely influences the judgements they make. Yet our leaders are drawn from an astonishingly narrow slice of society: every PM who attended an English university since WW2 went to Oxf...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Intergenerational income mobility in France: A comparative and geographic analysis

The question of the extent to which individuals' incomes are related to those of their parents has seen renewed interest as rising income inequality raises concerns about equality of opportunity. Gustave Kenedi and Louis...Read more...

Blog

LSE EUROPP:

Online tutoring can transform education for disadvantaged students

Online tutoring programmes have emerged as an effective strategy for narrowing the educational gaps that were exacerbated by the pandemic. Claudia Hupkau, Lucas Gortazar and Antonio Roldan-Mones outline how an eight-week...Read more...

CEP Insights

Social mobility

How much of an individual's success depends on their own hard work and how much on what their parents do for a living? A country where children from poor families are likely to be poor as adults and elite positions in so...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are the upwardly mobile more left-wing?

It is well-known that the wealthier are more likely to have Right-leaning political preferences. We here in addition consider the role of the individual's starting position, and in particular their upward social mobility...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Mapping changes in educational achievement across England

As part of the LSE Festival 2023, the Mapping People and Change exhibition visualises data through maps on various socio-economic issues, providing insights into the impact of a rapidly changing world on people and commu...Read more...

Journal article

International Economic Review:

2022 Klein Lecture - Parental education and invention: the Finnish enigma

Why is invention strongly positively correlated with parental income not only in the United States but also in Finland, which displays low income inequality and high social mobility? Using data on 1.45 M Finnish individu...Read more...

Chapter

Educational inequality

in Handbook of the economics of education

This chapter provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socioeconomi...Read more...

External report

Education Inequalities

Education is one of the most important predictors of people's life chances. Better-educated people are more likely to be in work and tend to earn more, and the influence of education does not stop there. Education shapes...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The economics of levelling up

There is an economic tension at the heart of the government?s plans for 'levelling up' the UK, according to CEP's research director Henry Overman. He argues that getting serious about helping people to access good job op...Read more...

Blog

LSE Europp:

Evidence from Greece: the potential pitfalls of using education as a welfare policy instrument

Policymakers frequently use education as a welfare policy instrument. But can these policies have unintended consequences? Christos Genakos and Eleni Kyrkopoulou present findings from a case study in Greece where a socia...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Sink or swim time? Social mobility and the 2021 Budget

Lee Elliot Major assesses the prospects for social mobility and economic recovery in Rishi Sunak's 2021 Budget....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Move on up

In the third and final anniversary lecture marking 30 years since CEP began, director Stephen Machin focused on social mobility - the extent to which young people's opportunities in life can transcend their family backgr...Read more...

Blog

LSE Review of Books:

Book Review: What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility? by Lee Elliott Major and Stephen Machin

In What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility? Lee Elliott Major and Stephen Machin give an account of the long experience of social mobility in the UK, its barriers and a possible way out. Offering a st...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Beyond income inequality: factoring in non-monetary rewards

While many researchers, policy makers, and interest groups are concerned with income inequality and its impact on society, much of the debate has focused on inequality in wages. In contrast, relatively little work has ad...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Ethnic minorities and the UK labour market: are things getting better?

Alan Manning and Rebecca Rose compare disparities in pay, employment and unemployment among different ethnic groups in the UK finding that there has been little change over the past 25 years. Indeed, for black, Pakistani...Read more...

Blog

LSE American Politics and Policy Blog:

Enslavers dominated Southern politics long after the Civil War ended

Before the Civil War, the politics and economy of the Southern US were dominated by those who practiced immoral - but at the time legally permissible - forced enslavement. In new research, Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager, and...Read more...

Book

What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility?

In this vital new book, Britain's first Professor of Social Mobility Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin, reveal the causes of the UK's low social mobility, explain why it's getting worse, and outline how we reverse this...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Covid-19 and social mobility

Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin propose urgent actions to tackle economic and educational inequalities in Britain...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Social mobility

Debates over how to improve life prospects for people irrespective of their family background promise to be a key theme in the run-up to the 2019 General Election. This briefing summarises evidence on social mobility fro...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Social mobility and its enemies

Increasingly it seems that the rich and poor of Britain are destined to stay on the same rungs of the economic or social ladder for successive generations. A new book by Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin calls for an a...Read more...

Book

Social Mobility and its Enemies

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 dea...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Social mobility in the United States

There is considerable geographical variation in the opportunities available to disadvantaged children in the United States, according to research by Raj Chetty, who delivered the 2016 Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures at ...Read more...

Government consultation

Response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility - Call for Evidence on "Transitions from School to Work"

Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Accounting for intergenerational income persistence: noncognitive skills, ability and education

We analyse in detail the factors that lead to intergenerational persistence among sons, where this is measured as the association between childhood family income and later adult earnings. We seek to account for the level...Read more...

Chapter

Changes in intergenerational mobility in Britain

in Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe

What economic regimes offer children born into poor families the best hope of moving into higher income groups? This study analyzes and contrasts the experience of the more free market based North American and British ec...Read more...

Chapter

Mobility and joblessness

in Seeking A Premier Economy: The Economic Effects Of British Economic Reforms, 1980-2000

The perceived impact of location on economic opportunity has been a constant refrain in discussions of the economic performance of the United Kingdom for as long as anyone can remember and the source of much feeling th...Read more...