AIBU to think social mobility for working class children is now impossible?

[frozenlakes]

When I was growing up even people from the most deprived backgrounds could still better themselves despite their limitations.

Except the concept of "working your way up the ladder" just doesn't seem to exist anymore?

Every career route now seems to require at least a degree. I remember the time when there was little to no emphasis on qualifications or degrees, unless you wanted to be a doctor or lawyer.
Dead-end administration jobs are being disguised as "entry level" positions and yet still require at least 5 GCSES and A levels.
It seems like if you don't have a degree you're stuck in low paid jobs with little opportunity for progression.

But then there's so much emphasis on Russell Group unis, which are statistically even more unrealistic for disadvantaged kids to get in to.

When it comes to owning property even young people from good socio-economic backgrounds will never get on the housing ladder, but at least they will most likely inherit a property. Working class kids wont.

I come from a "deprived" background - grew up on a council estate, left school at 16 with no qualifications, etc. But by the time I was 23 I'd "worked my way up" to a decent, well paid job (which now you'd need a degree for!) and had a mortgage. It scares me to think how different things would be for me if I was growing up in this day and age.

You made working class synonymous with the ‘Benefits Britain’ type on page 2, where you posted that “[j]ust to clarify on what I meant by working class (because people seem to be getting personally offended), I'm referring to deprived, disadvantaged children from inadequate households and communities. Not necessarily "normal" working class families.”

I agree with you on quite a lot of what you say, despite having made counter points to some of your posts; but being disingenuous and changing the goalposts when people discuss things you’ve said is pointless.

The discussion has moved on massively from page 2.

Working class is a huge spectrum and there are deprived, disadvantaged children from working class backgrounds, I know because I was one of them.

I agree.

Its absolutely ridiculous that so many jobs require a degree. Unless it’s a vocational degree, all a degree does is measure how good you are at writing essays! That should not be the entry criteria for nearly every job!

I really worry for my kids, and every non academic child out there.

And I don’t want my kids starting life with 50k plus of debt! It’s absurd.

We need proper on the job training, vocational training and apprenticeships. These should be normal progression routes. Degrees should have remained for the minority into that sort of thing.

Discussion has moved on but doing the smarmy, patronising 😂 emoji at somebody when you did actually say what they were accusing you of at one point is a poor show.

I actually said that all working class people are from Benefits Britain, did I?😂
If you haven't noticed my posts are hugely in support of children and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, I feel very passionately on the subject as I personally had a deprived upbringing. Again, not saying that all WC are deprived.

I’m not going to argue with you because you’re being facetious. You’re also weakening your own argument and no doubt discouraging posters with interesting perspectives to offer from joining in, which is a shame.

@ComtesseDeSpair Have a day off.

I’m not sure how the OP pointing out that the more deprived your background is (as in the lower within WC you are), the less likely it is you will experience any social mobility is “weakening” their argument? It’s a well studied correlation.

“Considering children born in the 1970 British Cohort Study, Elliot Major and Machin (2018) conclude there is particular immobility at the bottom and top of the income spectrum. Children born into the highest earning families are most likely themselves in later life to be among the highest earners, while children from the lowest earning families are likely to mirror their forebears as low earning adults. They find that 41 percent of children born into the richest top fifth of homes stayed among the richest homes as adults.”

”Greater immobility at the top and bottom of the social class hierarchy is observed by Payne (2017) who highlights ‘the social closure at the upper echelons of society and the isolation of those at the bottom’.”
www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Social-Mobility-–-Past-Present-and-Future-final-updated-references.pdf

It's not "impossible", no, I'm not even sure that' it's less possible than it used to be, but it's certainly very difficult. A working class child of a given IQ and personality type etc will nearly always underachieve badly relative to a hypothetical better-heeled counterpart with an identical genetic endowment.

Children can do well in education regardless of background if they value it and have the aptitude. For those with disabilities however, who just can’t, there’s far to little state support throughout their lifetime, I hate this idea that clever, hardworking people should be entitled to secure stable housing, everyone should be able to get a decent standard of living.

exactly. On one level school attainment, hardworking attitude etc is irrelevant, there has to be a minimum floor or safety net for EVERYONE. This doesn’t seem to exist.

I work with children with disabilities and they are often entirely dependent on family support for their lifetime. Sometimes intellectual disabilities run in families and so parents are really dependent on schools and later social care. God help a child with limited capacity in the care system.

I think people are being nit-picky about the OP - she has said that not all WC discourage their kids from education or are poor etc. she is clearly talking about people who have little family support. It’d be nice to see ideas for how it could be better.

people have mentioned housing, support for disabilities. Harnessing the internet as a way of spreading knowledge of opportunities.

Some PPs have raised the point about having to juggle work and university - just wanted to point out that when interviewing fresh graduates or for junior roles, I'd always favour the candidate who actually had real life work experience over the one who got grades but didn't do much else.

Probably biased towards that due to my own experience - I worked up to 20 hours a week throughout uni and did fine. My work experience helped me get me on my career ladder even though my cv was technically worse than most of the other candidates (I didn't have a computer science degree and I got a job as a data science intern).

Just writing the above so that people know that having to work to pay for uni shouldn't be a deterrent and can actually benefit you beyond being able to pay for rent

There’s two issues in the thread: there’s classic social mobility, the ability to move into jobs beyond those that your parents could envision. And then there’s improved finances, which is what actually improves lives.

Sadly social mobility does not nowadays automatically equate to improved finances. Quite the reverse with student debt and increased demands for qualifications. That’s before we even look at the housing crisis which dates back 20 years now, representing the entirety of working lives for anyone in even their 40s. The public sector has been facing increased demands at lower levels for reduced wages as a result of political game playing about the ideological small state, across the board. Then there’s the delightful idea that other forms of intrinsic reward and motivation should be adequate enough there, whereas footballers and bankers for instance both accept financial rewards only. Curiously the first has a large female workforce and the second is predominantly male, and it is naive in the extreme to think that isn’t a cause. Trades are not open to females as a rule.

Plenty also don't achieve the brilliant GCSE's and A levels needed for good apprenticeships and vocational trades these days

OP, what grades do you think are needed for vocational trades? Many only require 4’s in English and Math, or will accept Functional Skills

^ 100% agree with ParsleySageRosemary

After reading that post and your comment op, I Understand your perspectives more.

ParsleySageRosemary post is the most reductive idpol narrative that should just belong on twitter, mn used to be a critical thinking sub from a female perspective, it has obviously been overrun from those posting hot takes from twitter.

When you try to bring in footballers into the mix of puclib sector workers, you know they don''t really have a clue of basic economics...

MN has dumbed down in people reposting twitter hottakes, the RG degree in critial thinking is continualy outing itself as a meme.

'Trades aren't open to females as a rule' - are you writing from another country or another century

@AlexandriasWindmill

To be fair my 16 year old niece is repeatedly being side stepped for plastering apprenticeships at the moment. It’s pretty depressing. She’s super fit and able too.

Perhaps so. Where are you? I’m in the north. I know a few women who have tried - hell I had some dabbles on the outskirts myself. They / we’ve been forced out by the sexism and by being treated as sex objects for sale.

I knew a few in the midlands too. They use their sex as their USP, because they are rare.

DH works in construction and it’s mainly true. There are some female carpenters & electricians he comes across. On one hand, they are very much up against it time and cost wise and it is still a very physical job a lot of the time. Few female workers can physically carry as much stuff as 6 foot men and that does still influence who is employed. The vast majority of trades are self-employed so employment rights just don’t apply in the same way. You can literally be told you’re off a job for no reason and sent home immediately. There are lots of other barriers to women such as being totally incompatible with family life.

Also, and some Mumsnetters won’t like this, it has a huge amount of staff who are very recent migrants who have absolutely appalling attitudes towards women which make it an extremely difficult place to work (DH is a migrant who has been here for many years). These are Europeans too, usually.

The culture is pretty shit for women universally. Remember it’s only in the last couple of decades it’s become unacceptable for builders to mass cat call random female passers-by.

It’s not right, but that’s how it is.

@ParsleySageRosemary - I think it is quite worrying about the qualification inflation that we have. As PPs have mentioned, some jobs which used to require alevels, people now have masters for - and the student has to pay (and if they can’t then govt foot the bill for the extra years of study). That’s like 4 additional years of study at the expense of the student and taxpayer. some fields have become more complicated - but is it really worth 4 years of full time study more (and regardless some further on-the-job training usually needs to be done)?

on the other hand, I’ve found that some jobs are quite open to career switchers and employers are flexible with the type of degree you have (I career-switched into tech and know some non-uni educated people who have advanced in their careers in this sector too).

@Eunorition no excuse not to get 5 GCSE , really! unless of course ASN or a learning difficulty. How incredibly small minded of you

@CaribouCarafe
just wanted to point out that when interviewing fresh graduates or for junior roles, I'd always favour the candidate who actually had real life work experience over the one who got grades but didn't do much else. Probably biased towards that due to my own experience - I worked up to 20 hours a week throughout uni and did fine.

Do you realise that your bias directly discriminates against graduates with learning disabilities? or are ND?