To think social mobility in the UK is awful?

[cnwc]

AIBU to think that social mobility has actually got much worse in the last decades rather than better?

I think house prices in places like London have got a lot to do with it, and too many of the best jobs are located there.

It seems pretty much impossible for people to move up in the world

Guess it depends - me and most of my group of friends are the first in our family to go to uni.

We've become young professionals getting married to young professionals and for some of them going from single parent benefit households or low wage families to suddenly having a £100k household income (not me, I went creative) before age 30 is pretty good mobility.

If you go down the money route, you shall find the money (albeit that being if you are childless/don't have a disability or some other life and opportunity limiting difficulty).

We did all move to London though

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/30/social-mobility-in-uk-virtually-stagnant-since-2014

I think it isn't as good as it could be, but better than many places.

Several things also affect it:

• poor expectations of families, Many don't want their children to do better than them.
• stamp duty- making moving house wildly expensive
• increase in single parent families - I'm not bashing them, but it does mean more kids are in poverty
• degrees for everyone - it isn't necessary, and it isn't right to saddle kids with huge debts for a fourth rate degree that no-one cares about

Jaxhog What a vile post. Firstly, social mobility here is just about as bad as it can be for a developed country. Secondly, to suggest that it is down to single income families is appalling. Thirdly, I don’t know why you mean by fourth rate degrees that nobody cares about. You may not care but the student and their families are no doubt very proud of their achievements and their attempts to get an education . What a horrible misinformed snob you are.

Passthecherrycoke by MNers of very many posts over the years. It is/was a constant refrain on all of the class / social mobility posts.

howwudufeel you might need to have a rethink on that vile post by the horribly misinformed snob!

Stamp duty - that's a given surely. That and the deposit, increased house prices, etc.

Poor expectations of families - that exists. The malaise that creeps in over a couple of generations is very difficult to overcome. Education doesn't do it, signposting to jobs, careers doesn't do it. In areas of high socio economic deprivation it can become impossible for many young people to see themselves doing anything other than signing on. Reconginsing that isn't vile, it is fucking sad but a clear eyed perspective of an ever growing problem.

Single parent families - why is it vile to acknowledge their struggle? Why?

You haven't heard of 3rd/4th rate degrees? Have you paid no attention whatseover to the debacle that was the introduction of university fees? Not read any newspapers accounts, threads here from despairing lecturers on the commodification of education and the increasing consumerism of students and parents?

Pshaw!

With such blinkered outlook we will all be damned to stagnation in the name of 'being nice'

I am not blinkered in any way whatsoever. I read about social mobility as much as I possibly can actually. I even read Hansard because of the new cross party parliamentary group set up to deal with social mobility. I am from an area of the worst outcomes for social mobility in the UK.
I completely stand by my comments about that post

MN’ers don’t understand what middle class is. Theyre exactly the ones claiming degree and home ownership Make you middle
Class, because the vast majority of them are working class desperate to be middle.

Also the age group on MN is primarily blairite years when social mobility was good. It meant if you were WC you could
Be a Gp, or a solicitor, or an accountant- jobs that for our parents generation were often populated by the middle classes.

If you refuse to acknowledge that young people are wasting years of their young lives doing rubbish degrees and incurring a huge debt in the process, you are actively perpetuating the forces that prevent social mobility.

And Curious you may also want to look at the disparity in pupil premium and Lea funding, as well as the massive inequity of investment in theatre and museums in some parts of the Uk compared to others. Also lack of decent housing, lack of public transport (this is the big issue in my area) and lack of investment in industry as reasons for a lack of social mobility. It’s easy for people like you though to blame single parents, parents who don’t want their dc to succeed (I have yet to meet one of those) and students choosing to do rubbish degrees.

Define rubbish degree Maria. A marketing degree from an ex poly for example?

What do you consider a rubbish degree? I thought we’d got over the media studies myths of the early naughties?

I’m a child of the 90s, all my friends have degrees (I believe I have 3 family members Similar age who don’t, and I work with 2 people (out of a team of 19) who don’t.

Lots of them are rubbish. We were saddled with debt which at the time was also considered scandalous. My rubbish degree (business, ex poly) has paid off many times.

Particularly when you compare it to my friends in the sciences who have multiple degrees and post grads from excellent unis- PHDs even - who earn about £30k in short term contracts. Wouldn’t want to swap with them

As do I!

And whilst I don't read Hansard I too come from just such an area and have 'made good'. So I know it is possible.

HOWEVER... I also work in just such an area, with adults and teens who cannot see how to improve their lives, even with all of the free support they are offered. I see so very many bright young people start off on a new path, a job, training, education only to find it nigh in impossible to maintain the effort of getting up on time, catching the right bus, looking presentable, being polite, behaving as an employee, generally being tied to someone elses timetable and expectations.

They get no supoort at home, many parents and siblings actively sabotage their efforts, as an ex-psych lecturer I could tell you why... but the fact remains: In many unwaged families it becomes nigh on impossible to move out / on.

Ignoring that fact is detrimental to those involved. If the cross parliamentary group ignored it then it would end as just be a paper pushing exercise with no effective, real life suggestions - again!

So stand by your post. And I will conrtinue to stand by the people I work / volunteer with, trying to find a way of enabling them to do as I did.

A rubbish degree is one where students make no cognitive progress. There was a study in the US that showed that many students on four year undergraduate degrees made negative cognitive progress ie they actually went backwards versus high school. There is no reason to believe the same phenomenon does not exist in the UK.

People like me, howwudufeel

Who am I?

Read my last post....

So that could be any degree then Maria? A student could find they make no cognitive progress doing chemistry at Cambridge (as indeed happened to my BF)

The old trope about rich people getting their kids into better schools because they can afford to live near them is arse backwards.

We live (in a flat) near a wonderful school in an affluent area. It's wonderful because the kids almost all come from homes where education and learning are highly valued and there is huge engagement.

Good schools aren't just randomly dropped around the place. They're defined by their intake. And yes, house prices are beyond a joke and it's utterly dispiriting for anyone trying to start out. Been there.

But I genuinely have no clue how to make housing on this island more affordable. I live in Edinburgh, more people want to live here than there are reasonably priced homes. What's the answer?

Yes, could be any degree. There is far too little quality control of real cognitive progress in our HE system.

If you do actually work in that field you should know that it’s often not the fault of the people who live in those areas. The odds are stacked against them for all the reasons I have cited. Try getting into a decent university when there is no A level provision in your LEA. So yes, I absolutely stand by most post.

maria I chose a marketing degree from an ex poly, not because there is anything wrong with it but because if other posters are to be believed, despite you swanning around on mumsnet acting like you are a being from a higher plane, you actually have a marketing degree from Bristol Poly.

No I don’t. What a funny idea!

If you do actually work in that field you should know that it’s often not the fault of the people who live in those areas. Did I say anyone was to blame? No! I said, as an ex-psych lecturer I could explain why some people behave in the way I outlined.

The odds are stacked against them for all the reasons I have cited. Cited? Theatre and museums and public transport... They don't even enter the top 10 reasons why unwaged families can remain unwaged for generations.

Try getting into a decent university when there is no A level provision in your LEA. I did, as an adult. And have taught in FE Colleges that encourage teens from such areas to attend A levels or BTecs (A levels not beng the only way to get onto a degree); providing free buses, tailoring courses to suit the areas existing work market, changing courses to meet student aspirations, liaising with local university to extend that access, using PPP monies to improve all areas etc etc etc etc

So yes, I absolutely stand by most post. And I continue to disagree with some of your assumptions.

My kind of person tends to do that!

swanning around on mumsnet acting like you are a being from a higher plane, Oh! I missed that

I do accept your points about the population you work with curious but you also have to remember they can’t just replicate the political environment you achieved all that under, which helped you. The current political environment is designed to hinder your clients