To feel depressed for the future for 'treadmill families'?

[user1478265589]

A report on the BBC website today says more and more people are having to run, just to stay still, and that's the experience of many people I know. I don't even know what can be done about it, it's just really depressing...

• Millions of workers - particularly women - are trapped in low pay

• Only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high-income earner as an adult

• From the early years through to universities and the workplace, there is an entrenched and unbroken correlation between social class and success

• Despite some efforts to change the social make-up of the professions, only 4% of doctors, 6% of barristers and 11% of journalists are from working-class backgrounds.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37987166

Are you suggesting that people with, say, GCSEs are more likely to be divorced than people with degrees?

I think there is a reasonable amount of evidence that does suggest that education level and relationship stability are positively correlated. Of course correlation does not mean that it is a cause. Also there is a reasonable amount of research to suggest that women's education used to correlate with a higher divorce rate but that has reversed as barriers to divorce have lowered and so it becomes easier to access.

Some research

This one is on relationship breakdown in childhood rather than divorce itself:
"32% of mothers who stay with their partner for the first seven years of the study child’s life have a degree, compared with 19% of those who stay together for the first three years but separate at some point before the child turns 7 and just 12% of those who separate between birth and age 3. A similar pattern is evident for fathers," on p58 of this research socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-client-groups/families/instituteforfiscalstudies/156398r87.pdf

review of evidence

users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/change8.pdf Bit old now but interesting on the reversal thesis above.

family-studies.org/the-changing-impact-of-education-on-divorce-and-break-up-risk is a blog post but quite interesting on the changing nature over time and across number of countries.

this one is USA
guardian

Sorry that is only tangentially related to the thread.

3 children, degree (from a red brick) and most of family medical Drs (not I)
Separated - Can't afford a divorce yet. (I'm currently on £8.40 p/h, he's on 60,000 a year.) ........unless I get a sears tooth :)

Interestingly, My father's father was a pig farmer. Dad went to medical school and worked his butt off I guess back in the day.

I think everyone has a degree now days though, it doesn't really mean much anymore.

God do you have any idea what kind of poverty people were living in earlier this century? Non-stop complaining from this generation! our family income is 1300 per month (couple both working full time) but I don't feel trapped or deprived. I feel privileged. The edia is always telling us we shoudl be feeling poor and so we do but it's bullshit. Take a look at this from the 1970s! www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3271583/A-bleak-portrait-Dickensian-poverty-Glasgow-s-slums-1970s-Photos-families-living-one-room-without-running-water-electricity-rats-rubble-50-years-ago.html

I know I feel trapped in the cycle. single parent to a disabled child, currently working in a dead end part time job in a section of retail most analysts are predicting will decrease its staffing levels by 90% in the coming years. Unable to work full time due to DS' health issues. Only able to work part -time because i have care hours allocated. Would love to own my own home but with finacial experts literally laughing at the governments HTB schemes and being unable to save enough for a decent deposit any other way I dont think i will ever be able to afford a foot on the property ladder

The good ol' race to the bottom! 'The Victorians/1970s/Africans had/have it worse, so you should just put up and shut up.'

Dont watch main stream news and move! I dont plan on living in the UK for the rest of my life. No country is perfect, and in the grand scheme of things this one is not that bad - no war, enough food, cheap bills, food, cars and clothing compared to earnings (trust me I have lived in other parts of Europe, Asia and South America, and we really are cheap in comparison). The problem here is we have a Royal Family, that means titled people who run the country - just look at Camerons government, full of his friends and his familys friends. It definitely is a case of Who you know, not what you know in this country, I have even experienced that in a previous job - I was the only one not connected to the other employees in some way. We are proven to be the least socially mobile country in the world.

I am a TA with a masters from a top university. The pay is atrocious (I a, not a tax payer) but I choose to do it so I can be around for my DCs. Fortunately DH earns enough for me to do that.

That's what i do mrsbaffled

Stressed is that so? Proven to be the least socially mobile country in the world!?

I think the problem isn't so much that there is a higher or lower level of poverty than before, more that there is a widening of the rich & poor, some very strongly held misconceptions about why this is, and the lack of social mobility.

Also - how very, very, easy it is to suddenly drop through the net and end up being in a vulnerable position. Ill health; a child with ill health (even medium term); wanting to spend time with child(ren) so not earning; changes in employment; unemployment; caring for a loved one; being too young; being too old; race; religion; etc. The list of 'disadvantages' that can take a person/family out of the running is pretty long.

Hardly anyone fits the criteria of being 'the man' yet we still being like 'the man' as the path to success. Meanwhile, the very few very privileged people with all the money are just keeping hold of it.

Excellent thread.

Not a great deal to add but I am not sure people have ever been so exposed to things they can't afford alongside the impression given that these things are normal for the likes of them to have. Some people do have the wherewithal to ignore it or not care, but many more don't. There is a vicious circle whereby poverty depletes willpower, but you need more willpower to manage effectively in poverty: www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/
There is still collective shock and outrage that living standards are getting worse for Millenials and younger compared with Boomers and that we need to get back to normal.
Life between the industrial revolution and the postwar consensus was a treadmill for great numbers of people, although before that work in cottage industries was rather more leisurely and ad hoc for many, before widespread minute to minute timekeeping, before the Victorians cut back on the number of public holidays.

There is another treadmill going on whereby huge amounts of goods that aren't truly needed, and which are wasteful of finite resources are being made, which create both work and demand (the latter often causing debt and/or feelings of inadequacy).

Worse in the 70s? The 1970s was the time of greatest wealth equality ever.

What does JAM stand for? (Mumsnet has advertised this thread as 'Autumn budget tipped to target JAM')

Sorry, 'JAMs'

I was brought up in real poverty. The poster above who has linked to photos of slums in the 70s shows the kind of housing I lived in then. So my living conditions have got way better. But I can still recognise that in the last 5 years especially, things have got worse financially.

shove - I know this is cheeky, but have you ever thought of setting up a Mumsnet bookgroup on this stuff? Many of us seem interested, so I'm sure you'd get a good reception.

BungoWomble thanks for that link.

I teach in the US, and often show kids the TED talk about does money make you mean?

I reckon some of the stats from the inequality trust would go very well with that.

I teach in a private school, where a few of the families are hugely wealthy - the kind who give tens of millions to politics/charities. In spite of that it's pretty liberal & left wing (Trump did not get a majority in this area) so and the ethos of the school encourages this type of teaching.

Am reading and watching this thread with interest.

Kick personally I would say the biggest problem is the cuts to services in education, especially for send, in sw, again especially for send, within nhs, non existent social housing etc

I don't know enough to know how much was (proportionally) put into these things in the past but I find it much more frightening that the things that enable quality of life despite poverty and opportunities to escape it are gone now.

Shove, you just listed everything I don't have the time energy or strength to do.

I share your feelings too user 1478 and watched a report last night on the homeless crisis where there were teachers and nurses having to use homeless hostel shelters as they could not afford rising rents in some areas .
I am in my late 40s and think this inequality is the result of 30 years of policies which have worked against those in lower incomes . Things like lack of access to grammar schools which have helped working classes become socially mobile , the introduction of tuition fees and the lack of student grant which I and my husband and the deregulation of financial markets in late 90s have made the divide get much bigger. I don't support it and would love to live in a fairer society . We should also have higher rates of tax that used to exist in the 60s for very high earners and make sure the very wealthy do not offshore funds if they reside here.
My real worry is how bad things will get if the NHS collapses under the strain and we have people who can't afford healthcare.

I don't think the answer is to avoid the news but stay politically engaged so you can vote when necessary in an informed way

I think JAM stands for Just About Managing... or the squeezed classes.

There are so many thoughtful and thought provoking posts here, so just adding another that I hope will offer light not heat.

The Today programme had a section about 6.20 this morning about polarisation, driven by globalisation in which one of the speakers commented that the global corporations now escape effective regulation in any country and evade moral obligations to employees and society (such as paying tax). Politicians' collective failure to force corporations to act responsibly towards all, instead of just shareholders, is what allows them to off-shore jobs to lower wage economies. Communications and systems technology enable financial whizzkids to send the money to the states imposing the least legal and taxation burdens.

And, to a degree, the emergence of English as the world's second language for any person to be considered "well-educated" has meant that English speaking countries have suffered (and will suffer) disproportionately. For example, calls to telephone service centres can be handled in India or the Philippines as effectively and much cheaper than in Southport or Scotland. Perhaps rather more than countries like Germany or France, whose languages are spoken less widely and where there are fewer opportunities to send the work somewhere it can be done on the cheap.

And if there are fewer well paid jobs, then the tax base shrinks, forcing economies in public services just as the need for them explodes.

I can't buy into either the left or the right wing extreme views sometimes put forward on these forums. There's an old saying: If you are not a Communist when you are 18, there's something wrong with your heart; if you are still one at 48, there's more wrong with your head. Which is code for it's impossible ever to level the playing field completely but it's not an excuse for not trying. Poverty is always relative but one measure of a good society (or government) might be the amount which is tolerated.

Oc, I am no communist, but definitely more left leaning. I don't hold extreeme views imo, I just don't see the need to reward the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

That said, re corporations - I hate the likes of amazon, not paying taxes and treating staff terribley yet I buy from them constantly, because it's easier tland cheaper to get my kids sensory toys, disabilities aids and educational resources there. And I need that 'easier' to survive just now. And I can't see a time things won't be this hard. I would love to boycot, same with nestle et al, but I just have nothing left to spare the energy or focus or strength or money. I very much imagine many parents are in a much worse position than us, and I guess that's what becomes so frustrating, that to have any standard of life people effectively prop up the corotations that are screwing everyone. When people are left with no choice what do they do?

There is no fixing this.

It has taken several dacades to erode the values and thought processes of the people in all countries. For a nation to thrive, their must be homogenous systems in place what are oirs now?

We did away with extended family in the 70-80's when focus became all about self. Now its all about the individualism of everyone.

We are all divided- child against parent, spouse against spouse, relative against relative, family life against work, community against community. Human beings naturaly build or rebuild when they come together under a shared set of goals and values. We have albeit knowingly or unknowingly contracted out our natural rights to "hypocrites(as in the greek meaning)" commonly called politicians today.

The policies of Thatcher & Blair have changed the course of this country as has the bushes, Clinton & Regan in the USA. We can pontificate and put fourth our learned arguments/reasons all we like. Whatever the end game is, the majority of the people worldwide ARE merely collateral damage.

We wonder how did things get so bad? Look at Africa. Its the only self sufficient place on the planet. The suvival of our western world relies on africa to keep on giving the yet the people are a mess. But because Africa is so far away, we had no time to care. Well now a mess has finally reached our doorstep- our rug is being pulled out from under us. No one can help us but ourselves.

Evil prevails when good people do nothing.

I have been doing some reasearch, I found the the reason why The American legislature allowed blacks to sit anywhere on the buses (Rosa Parks) was not because of demonstration marches but because of the fact that black americans in the south bandid together and did not use the bus transportation system for close to a year!

So loss of profit was the real reason behind it all.

Think of the inconvenience that must have been but they kept it.

Are we westerners prepared/ have the strenght of conviction to do what it takes to achieve common interests?.... oh it seems we no longer have community interests...we first must get past our 'self' first?

Adip I just explained why I (&so many others) can't find that source of conviction. We are all so worn down already. I'd I boycot amazon I can't afford the things that help my kids disabilities, i'm sure for others boycotting nestle means they can't afford formula, or boycotting Walmart means that can't afford to eat- how many people are stuck to far from aldi etc and rely of asda deliveries because they can't afford to drive or can't afford public transport? Cheap disabilities aids costs twice what amazon sell the same things for, I try book people first but still amazon often sells what we need.

There is a problem with lack of community yes, but I'm not sold on the idea we go back to sticking together no matter what, women never leaving violent husbands, children being beholden to abusive parents. 86% of all sexual abuse occurs between direct family members (nspcc) and 1 in 4 children are sexually abused at some point in their childhood (one in four chairty, save the children etc) 1 in 3 women raped at some point in their lives, and 1 in 4 physically abused by their husband or partner (unsure of source of the top of my head, while sick in bed today). Marital rape was legal until the 80s- it's important we don't go back to those days. In fact there's still more not spoken about enough, male rape, men domestically abused, women who sexually abuse children (making daughters safe again is an excellent website). Yes there is a problem with lost community, lost support, but we can't go back to that blindness.