Social mobility is an issue that most countries around the world are grappling with, especially as there are worrying signs that the past few years have seen a worrying decline in the ability for people to progress.

A recent report highlighted the clear regional variations across the United Kingdom, with deprivation in some areas so persistent that families are being locked into disadvantage for several generations.

The report highlights that the key to social mobility is that people get a fair chance of success in life, regardless of whether one’s parents are rich or poor, or you live in the smallest town or the largest city.  The researchers tested this by looking at educational data and earnings data from HMRC to identify sons from disadvantaged families who were born between 1986 and 1988.  They were then tracked between the ages of 16 and 28.

Location matters

The report clearly shows that your location is hugely important, with significant differences in the pay adults receive in different parts of the country, with this particularly pronounced for the parents of disadvantaged sons relative to more affluent families from the same area.

Indeed, disadvantaged young adults in areas with high social mobility have roughly twice the earning potential as their peers from low social mobility areas.  What’s more, the pay gap between youngsters from deprived families and youngsters from affluent families were two and a half times larger in areas with low social mobility.

The scale of this was underlined by the fact that 1 in 6 location authorities were defined as being low mobility areas, which collectively added up to 50 areas of England.  These areas would be defined by a low number of professional and managerial occupations, few good schools, moderate population density, and high levels of deprivation.

What’s more, education is not the ladder out of deprivation in areas of low social mobility as it is in areas of high social mobility.  In these more promising areas, gaps in educational achievement account for nearly all of the earnings differences between people, but in areas of low social mobility, this isn’t the case.  Indeed, around 33% of the pay gap in these areas is driven by non-educational factors, including limited social networks, low levels of financial support from family, and poor resilience to economic turbulence.

“This new evidence highlights the need for a joined up-approach across government, third sector organisations, and employers,” the researchers conclude. “The education system alone cannot tackle this postcode lottery – a strategy that considers the entire life experience, from birth through to adulthood, is crucial to ensuring fairer life chances for all.”