Inclusive economy? Restarting social mobility
"I know my place"
By Tim Thorlby
5 mins
This blog begins a short series exploring what an ‘inclusive economy’ looks like; we will look at it from different angles.
There is much talk about economic growth today – “growing the pie” - but what will it take to ensure that the benefits of this are actually shared across our regions and communities? Who gets to *eat* the pie?
An ‘inclusive economy’ is easy to talk about but hard to deliver. In this blog, we start by assessing the scale of the challenge. We will do this by exploring the reality of social mobility in the UK today.
1 – Understanding social mobility
‘Social mobility’ is a phrase that most people instinctively nod along to; it sounds good doesn’t it? It feels positive and offers a sense that everyone should somehow be able to ‘get on’ in life. But what does it mean? And are we, you know, actually doing it or not?
I was struck by some of the findings of a recent report by the UK’s Social Mobility Commission, so I am going to briefly reflect on those in this blog.
The Social Mobility Commission was first established in 2010 and every year it publishes a ‘State of the Nation’ report, outlining progress (or not) towards social mobility across the UK. It is an independent statutory body. The 2024 State of the Nation was published in September 2024 and is a good starting point to reflect on this issue.
The Commission defines social mobility as a change which is ‘intergenerational’. In other words:
a person experiences social mobility when they have different life outcomes from their parents. This could mean a different income level, a different occupational class or other differences, such as housing or education.
(p.20, State of the Nation 2024)
A socially mobile society would be one where your life chances and trajectory were not defined by where you were born or who your parents were. It would be a fluid society with opportunities for all. This should be good news for those born ‘at the bottom’ of the social heap and would discourage complacency in those lucky enough to be born ‘at the top’. The Commission notes that mobility “can also be upwards or downwards”.
The drivers of social mobility are fairly obvious factors like childhood conditions, educational opportunities, work opportunities and the social network available to you and your family (your ‘social capital’).
Outcomes (‘progress’) are measured on material issues like occupation, income, wealth, housing and educational attainment, not least because these things are readily measurable but also because social mobility is inherently defined as a material socio-economic condition.
(If you are a data geek, by the way, the Commission have also invented a new interactive data tool presenting basic social mobility data for 203 upper tier local authorities across the country and giving a visual picture of how social mobility varies between places. The data is fairly basic in many respects, but it still represents progress as this kind of information has never been available at this level of detail before. Try putting your postcode in and see what you find.)
2 – Emerging findings
There are three reflections which I want to draw out of the Social Mobility Commission’s latest report.
Thought 1 – Social mobility varies strongly between places
Firstly, and for many of us intuitively obvious, is that social mobility varies starkly between areas and regions of the UK.
The Commission have invented a new index called ‘promising prospects’ that uses a bunch of indicators to assess your chances, at birth, of doing well in life. It ranks each of the UK’s local authority areas by their favourability for a young person’s prospects. The pattern, as shown in the map below, is striking.
Index of Promising Prospects 2024
(Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation Report 2024, p.103)
We see that:
nearly all of the UK’s most favourable areas for social mobility are in London and the South East of England.
most of the UK’s least favourable areas for social mobility are former industrial areas (like Barnsley in South Yorkshire), rural areas (like Cornwall) or coastal areas (like Grimsby) outside the south east of England.
In other words, the geography of social mobility is closely related to that of deprivation, and the national pattern for this is recognisable and longstanding.
As someone who has just moved with his family from Islington (one of the more favoured areas) to Sheffield (one of the less favoured areas), this data gives pause for thought. (What have we done?!) Fortunately, these area characterisations are generalisations, not absolute determinants, and every area clearly has a mix of communities and households, so whilst the pattern says something important about prospects overall, our children’s futures are still up for grabs.
Thought 2 – Social mobility starts at birth
By the age of five children are already on very different life trajectories. This is before they even start primary school, which means that even the most outstanding schools are already playing catch-up on a child’s first day at school.
The data shows that there is a significant development gap between the cohorts of children who take Free School Meals and those who do not, by the age of five. Exactly the same pattern shows for children’s development when comparing those who live in more deprived areas against those living in less deprived areas.
This underlines what we learnt long ago, namely that early intervention is much more effective than late intervention in terms of achieving impact. This underpinned much of the logic for Sure Start Centres. It is a lesson largely lost during the Age of Austerity but hopefully one that can be recovered.
Thought 3 – Social mobility takes decades to change
The most important things in life don’t usually happen easily. The same is true with tackling poverty and shifting the dial on social mobility. I have been working on these kinds of issues for my entire career and the fact is that the geography of opportunity has not changed much in the UK in the last 30 years. That is because it is very hard to change deeply entrenched patterns of disadvantage.
This is not meant to be a depressing statement, rather to highlight what is required to make a difference. Deeply entrenched social and economic patterns require concerted, persistent action over many years to shift them. Change is absolutely possible, but it is resistant to solutions which are short-term, small or constantly changing. A few grant programmes from Government doesn’t cut it.
I was particularly struck by one of the few recommendations to emerge from the Social Mobility Commission’s new report. The Chair, Alun Francis, said that shifting the dial on social mobility will require:
“…a place-based focus, led by local authorities”
I couldn’t agree more.
Central government policies and programmes, improved public services and changes to the national tax and benefit system certainly have an important role to play. But we will never really get to grips with the changes we need to make to housing, communities and local economies – and intangible things like ‘aspiration’ – without strong local leadership to make it happen in each area. The solution to greater social mobility won’t be the same in every area, because not every area is the same. This makes local leadership essential. Exactly the same point was made recently by the Pathways to Work Commission in Barnsley, calling for local ‘place-based ownership’.
So, an important part of the solution for greater social mobility and shifting those entrenched patterns of disadvantage is not just more top-down programmes from central government, but a long-term shift of power and funding to local authorities, giving them the tools to finally get to grips with the fundamentals that will deliver for their very different local communities.
3 – Searching for the golden age?
The current policy interest in social mobility was initiated by the Sutton Trust, an education charity, some 20 years ago. In 2005 it published a landmark report on intergenerational mobility, which popularised the concept. Its most recent update report on the subject echoes the findings we have just looked at and poses significant questions[1].
In particular, it notes that social mobility appears to have declined in recent years, with those at the top and bottom of the income distribution not really moving anywhere.
The report describes how our education system was once a ‘great social leveller’ but that now:
“the evidence suggests that a former golden age of upward mobility has been replaced by a modern era of declining opportunities and more limited upward mobility.”
In other words, a new approach is needed, as the old ones no longer seem to be delivering.
An IFS report in 2023 came to similar conclusions – declining mobility and the need for new approaches[2].
4 – Greater aspiration?
Reports like the one we have been considering often reflect the need for ‘more aspiration’ amongst local communities. I sort of agree with this, but I think that most families already have a fair amount of aspiration.
Where aspiration has often been most lacking is in political circles, with a focus on short-term expedients (what did ‘Levelling Up’ ever achieve for us?) rather than a willingness to grasp the hard long-term choices.
A renewed political mindset is required which is prepared to recognise how our economy should be serving social purpose and how power works best when it is decentralised. (I have written a longer blog on this – The Road to Skegness Pier – which also sets out the values which underpin this renewed approach).
I’d love to see more aspiration in Westminster and our City Halls to finally move the dial on improving social mobility. It’s not just about more funding and more money, its fundamentally about sharing power by devolving it down to local authorities, local partnerships and communities.
To be upwardly mobile, maybe the best way to start is for government to be more downwardly mobile.
This blog was written by Tim Thorlby. Please sign up for the email alert if you’d like to know about future blogs, usually published once a month.
Notes
[1] Centre for Economic Performance (2022) Social Mobility – Past, Present and Future, Sutton Trust, London
[2] van der Erve, L. et al. (2023) Intergenerational mobility in the UK, IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities