To think social mobility is impossible for working class /lower middle class kids?

[Cheeriosay]

And if it is possible how?! I feel the prospect of social mobility is at an all time low for teens/young adults due to the educational crisis in schools, cost of living crisis & lack of opportunity to move up in the world. This was relatively easy years ago either through education, marriage (or both).. Now it's not going to be as easy for teens & young adults who want to climb the social ladder.
I'm putting it bluntly, I'm sure some posters will be on soon to say these teens should know their place & not be getting ideas above their station but sod that!

I agree about security, but in my experience, at the lower end, more and more companies are avoiding offering these robust securities by employing on a zero hours contract, or 15 hours p/w with the expectations that employees will work extensive overtime, so full time without the benefits. Supermarkets are the worst for that.

That's not that helpful for those in manual work, typically WC men, but women too, in heavier trades, who are only useful as long as their health holds. When a lifetime of literal heavy living takes its toll there aren't any reasonable adjustments and light duties, and no employer is going to pay sick pay indefinitely to someone whose body is no longer capable of the work. There is a world of difference between becoming ill in a salaried middle class office job and in a typically WC occupation.

@ObelixtheGaul I work in payroll & see more & more particularly younger staff getting paid on timesheets as opposed to contracts. It means no sick pay other than SSP and often no progression in salary.

And these are typically the jobs where employee rights are dodged by zero hours contracts and 'part time' employment with overtime.

Very few people could afford to go on holiday, have central heating, drive cars etc.

Are you sure you're not mixing it up with the 50s and 60s? There were people who couldn't afford a holiday in the 70s, as there are now, but most people expected to go away for a fortnight to somewhere in the UK, and central heating was making its way into homes - it had got beyond "very few". We were after Beeching, so car ownership was widespread even if it was largely one car per family, driving by the man.

But this thread is about social mobility, not about living standards. And in general social mobility was better because of the expansion in "middle class" type jobs.

I work as a supply teaching assistant, so obviously no pay if I am not working. That's fine for me at my stage in life, it's my choice, but I note that I am not covering for sickness and maternity leave as I expected when I started this. I am plugging the gaps staffing because schools can't afford FT permanent staff. It's cheaper to pay the agency than to pay pension contributions, sick pay, etc. Increasingly, schools are whittling down the permanent assistant staff to the bare minimum and backfilling with agency. Makes me feel guilty because I am adding to the problem by being available to work like this.

It’s not where you come from, but what you do You're talking about the situation as it was then. It's a lot harder now.

It's not just about what happens to the most able. What about the averagely able? If they are in the higher layers of society they will find a job through thir parents or parent's friends, if they are not "socially connected" they will be in a minimum wage job with a 16 hour contract (but on call for 60)

I've always said social mobility is absolutely possible for everybody through education. Education gives us the tools to attain successful careers which is what lifts us out of poverty. But education isn't available to everybody. In grammar school areas it depends on parents having money for tutors. There ae no longer the grants that allowed low income students to travel the 3 or 5 miles or so to further education. Adult education has been all but got rid of.Social mobility may be "possible" but it's a lot more difficult nowadays.

But the main problem is the way employment is hollowing out in the middle - a few very high paid jobs, lots of minimum wage jobs, and a decrease in number of jobs in between.

employment is hollowing out in the middle - a few very high paid jobs, lots of minimum wage jobs, and a decrease in number of jobs in between

This is true.

I also think that education on its own is not a guarantee of social mobility. A teacher whose parents rent (so no help with deposit or inheritance) may be highly educated (degree as a minimum), but if they live in the SE of England they are likely to struggle to afford to buy a house on their salary.

The biggest divide these days is about the level of wealth your family has, not necessarily whether you have a degree or what you do for a living.

If you have no family wealth and will not inherit, unless you're one of a very small minority you are unlikely to experience appreciable social mobility in your life time. The progress you can make through education and getting a higher paid more secure job than your parents and buying a house where they rented will probably only really benefit your grandchildren.

Oh absolutely and I really feel for people in those occupations but they are solidly working class. I was replying to the poster who said working class people can break into middle class then fall back again due to illness/health, these benefits help keep the working class who moved up into middle class stay there in the absence of family wealth.

Absolutely agree, it should be outlawed as it is massively exploitative.

But people working in low level supermarket jobs have not been upwardly socially mobile so can't fall back to where they came from, from where they are currently if misfortune befalls them.

I'm not sure where your separation is between class and wealth? If you are saying that people in manual work are 'solidly' working class, you're saying that even if a builder earns six figures, he will still be WC. Which many would agree with. However, later you are arguing that benefits that protect people's finances in the event of illness prevent them 'slipping back' to being WC indicating you believe social class to be income dependent. Which is it?

That's not very realistic

I tend to think there's too much emphasis on social mobility as the holy grail great equaliser anyway. We can't all be middle class doing office jobs. Society requires a huge army of people to do the ordinary 'working class' work. So rather than a culture that just accepts that being WC is a bit rubbish and encourages people to escape it by 'bettering themselves' which is never going to be an option for the majority, I'd rather see a society that places higher value on the working class and improves living standards within that class, rather than looking for ways to make more people middle class.
Whatever your social class you should be well housed, treated fairly in employment and paid properly. Your children should be educated to achieve their potential and you should have sufficient income to participate in your society and enjoy your leisure. Bread and roses.
If we got this right we wouldn't need to worry nearly as much about how easy it is to move to the MC.

Yes! Spot on.

Social mobility for bright working class kids was killed off when Labour abolished State Grammar Schools without setting anything serious up to replace them.

The situation today is the same as it has been for the last 50 something years.

Thank you SO much Tony Crosland.

@5128gap 100%. There should not be any stigma in 2024 in not being academic. Every child should be educated to reach their full potential. For some that is PHd in astrophysics. For some that is being a skilled plumber. We need to have a more varied workforce with multiple ways into different professions, some academic and some through work routes. No one should feel stigmatised that they only took 3 GCse’s if that was not the right route for them. We need a mixture of people to keep the economy going

i don’t actually really understand what ‘levelling up’ really means in practise. Being a middle class accountant doesn’t mean you are going to live a happier life than a brickie on a building site. And that is what is important overal isn’t it? I think we forget that we are not just economic machines paying for older people’s pensions.

But the problem was, those who didn't make the grade, sometimes by a hair's whisker and sometimes because the postcode lottery meant that there were far fewer places in some areas than others, were then effectively written off.

Grammar schools were an excuse to massively underfund the education of the majority. The idea (not saying it came off, mind) was to offer decent education to everybody, not just those deemed 'bright' by a testing system which wasn't fair across the board.

A lot of intelligent children were massively let down by a system which basically dumped them on the scrapheap because they didn't make the grade, therefore were undeserving of a decent education.

A lot of average to below-average children who actually could have achieved more if they had been considered worth the time and effort were left to struggle.

And yes, sadly, this didn't change as much as it should have after the grammar system, and schools continued to ignore the majority in favour of the very bright, with some lip-service paid to those with the severest difficulties. But at least the top set was a tangible goal and you had 5 years to try and get there instead of this narrow little window which, if you missed it, locked you out of access to the rarefied atmosphere of the bright kids for the rest of your school days.

Completely agree with this Asian, Nigerian, Eastern European & Indian background kids are often very high achievers. They are not allowed fail!

I do t agree. I was grammar school educated

my children go to a comp. My eldest just did way better than I did at GCSE and has a much wider curriculum offer

I am intrigued though if many of the successful comps are grammers within a comp. The fact is once you start putting sets into most subjects you create a multi tier system. I know of one comp where they practically set on day 1 for most subjects based on a test prior to entry and SATs. I know of another school that barely sets at all and most only happen from about year 9. Was your child put into sets and if so were they in the higher sets?

The 30k salary is new grad now, vs 17k 20 years ago in same role. Same property was 74k then and 120k now. Salary has nearly doubled in 20 years, price of that property has a bit less than doubled. My point was that it would be no harder for me to buy in the same area with the same job than 20 years ago.
And with the potential for salary to nearly double in 5 years, then able to move up from a 1 bed flat to a family house.

I am intrigued though if many of the successful comps are grammers within a comp. The fact is once you start putting sets into most subjects you create a multi tier system. I know of one comp where they practically set on day 1 for most subjects based on a test prior to entry and SATs That is a far better and fairer system than 11 plus. You can be in the top set for one subject and the bottom in another, rather than just failing the 11 plus and in effect being in the bottom set" for everything, and because it's all within one school, it's easier to move betwen sets.

True but it means that the children who attend these schools get an advantage over those who go to a true ‘comprehensive’ which, as I understand it, that all children were educated together no matter their ability.