Education is a topic I have touched on a growing amount in the past year, especially as the labor market faces both political and technological disruption.  Coupled with these twin threats are growing concerns about social mobility, or the lack of it, in recent years.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a recent study found that big increases in investment in education can help on all three of these fronts.  The paper says that investing in public education can have a profound impact upon social mobility.

“It’s something we’ve long suspected, but this study really confirms that there’s a strong link between the quality of the schools you go to and the opportunities you have later in life,” the authors say. “The better your school, the better your economic opportunities.”

Upwardly mobile

The study found a direct connection between expenditure on public education and returns on that investment ranging from lower drop-out rates, higher taxes and general increases in upward mobility.

The flipside was also true, with poor school quality leading to a wide range of social and economic problems.  Lower school quality was linked with everything from higher dropout rates to higher teen pregnancy rates.

“Because the dropout rate negatively affects both teen birth rates and absolute upward mobility, this shows that school quality not only has short-term impacts on educational outcomes, but also has long-term impacts on children’s success as adults,” the authors say.

It was also interesting to note the impact schooling had on people who were largely removed from the opportunities present in large cities.  Traditionally, the only way for youngsters in rural areas to progress would be to move to the cities.  It’s a problem that new technologies haven’t managed to overcome.

“One finding—that rural young people rely on moving out of the area to move up in the income rankings—presents a challenge for policy makers who not only care about prosperity for people, but also for places,” the authors say. “To be able to retain talented children, rural areas need to create high-skilled jobs and favorable environments for start-up entrepreneurs.”

I’ve written previously about the various remote learning platforms that have emerged in recent years have not impacted social mobility (yet).

Bridging the gap

It’s what’s known as the Matthew Effect, whereby projects that are designed to help the disadvantaged and therefore close the inequality gap, actually do the opposite and result in the gap getting larger.

A recent study by researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology highlighted this in action.  It found that children with low-income parents were less likely to use the free resources available to them.  What’s more, when they did use them, they tended to do so less effectively.

“A key goal for low-income parents is making sure their children stay in school, so often they are more focused on monitoring whether their kids are doing homework and going to class,” the authors say. “Their attention is directed towards school and not what could happen outside the classroom.”

The analysis suggests that higher-income parents act as a kind of learning broker for their children.  They do this by hunting down extra resources for their children outside of school, whether this is a MOOC, a book or some other extra curricular activity.

The paper found that low-income parents tend to face a number of challenges, even when accessing free resources online.  For instance, they may lack the technical skills to both find and make effective use of the tools.  Even if they did have the requisite skills, they would often downplay them.

The first step to overcome this is to appreciate the challenges that exist, and then try and work with parents to overcome them and therefore help their children access the tools.  It’s a challenge that is easier said than done however.