Ideas@TheCentre
Bursting the myth of ‘closed-shop’ British social classes
Peter Saunders |
11 June 2010
Britons still have class on the brain. The Conservative Party warned in a recent report that class divisions are so rigid that children born into lowly origins have little hope of success. ‘Social mobility,’ it said, ‘has ground to a halt.’
The last Labour government agreed, for it commissioned no fewer than three inquiries into social mobility in less than two years. They all warned of ‘low’ mobility rates, concluding that ‘birth, not worth’ determines people’s life chances, and described Britain as ‘a closed-shop society.’
The evidence I review in my new book, Social Mobility Myths, shows this is nonsense. Social mobility in Britain within the three main classes is widespread. In the last hundred years, it was more common for people to change classes than to stay in the class to which they were born. This is still the case today. By comparing people born in 1958 with those born in 1970, we find that in both groups, more than 40% had moved upwards relative to the social class of their parents by the time they reached their early 30s, and about one-third had moved down. This looks nothing like a ‘closed shop society.’
Nor is Britain a more ‘closed’ society than other western countries. The proportion of men entering a higher class than their fathers is about the same as in Ireland, France and Germany.
It is true that children of working class parents are less likely to get middle-class jobs than those born to middle-class parents. Politicians seize on this as evidence that working class children are being ‘blocked,’ but this ignores differences in ability.
In an open society, people will be recruited to jobs largely on the basis of their ability, so the brightest people will tend to be found in the higher occupational classes. These people will tend to produce relatively bright children, so the next generation of middle-class children will be over-represented in the higher positions. In a meritocracy, therefore, we should not expect equal success rates among children from different class origins.
All the recent UK government reports ignore this, but my research shows that ability is more than twice as important as class in influencing where people end up in life. Half the variance in class destinations is explained by ability alone.
The myth that Britain is a ‘closed shop society’ has pernicious effects. Tell somebody they are living in a country where hard work and talent are rewarded, and they will strengthen their efforts to succeed. But tell them they are living in a ‘closed shop society’ where mobility has ‘ground to a halt,’ and they’ll probably just give up and drop out.
Millions of people have worked their way up to responsible positions in British society from humble beginnings. It’s time the political class recognised and applauded this rather than denying it.
Peter Saunders is a Senior Fellow at the CIS and the author of Social Mobility Myths, published by Civitas on 1 June.
