UK Edition
Britain's social mobility 'cold spots' – where young people are trapped for life – have been identified in a landmark report.
Families face being locked into disadvantage for generations unless the issue of social mobility is urgently tackled, the Social Mobility Commission has warned.
In the most detailed study of regional social mobility ever conducted in the UK, the Commission published a report on Tuesday identifying England’s local councils with the worst and the best social mobility.
In the “coldest spots” those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are entitled to free school meals, have little chance of making a better life for themselves or their children.
They also earn much less than their more affluent peers.
The areas with the worst social mobility include Chiltern, Bradford, Thanet, Bolton, Wolverhampton, Kingston-upon-Hull, Fenland, Mansfield, Walsall, Gateshead, Kirklees, St Helens, Dudley, and Bolton and Wigan.
This is in comparison to the most socially mobile local authorities in England which include: Forest Heath, West Oxfordshire, South Derbyshire, Kingston upon Thames, Cherwell, East Cambridgeshire, South Gloucestershire, and Tower Hamlets.
“These findings are very challenging,” said Steven Cooper, interim co-chair of the Commission. “They tell a story of deep unfairness, determined by where you grow up.
"It is not a story of North versus South or urban versus rural; this is a story of local areas side by side with vastly different outcomes for the disadvantaged sons growing up there.”
The Commission has called on regional leaders to draw up tailored, sustained and local programmes to boost social mobility in the worst areas.
It also called on the Government to extend its current Opportunity Areas programme – which gives support to 12 councils – to include several more authorities identified as the areas with the most entrenched disadvantage.
The research, carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO), links educational data and HMRC earnings for the first time to identify young sons from disadvantaged families (those entitled to free school meals).
The sons, who were born between 1986 and 1988 and went to state school in England, were followed from aged 16 to 28.
The results found that disadvantaged young adults in areas with high social mobility can earn twice as much as their counterparts in areas where it is low, over £20,000 compared with under £10,000.
Moreover, pay gaps between deprived and affluent young adults in areas with low social mobility are 2.5 times larger than those in areas with high social mobility.
The results, covering around 320 local councils in England and 800,000 young adults, show a "postcode lottery" for disadvantaged people.
Annual earnings from this group range from £6,900 (Chiltern) to £24,600 (Uttlesford).
The study also found that in areas of low social mobility, up to 33 per cent of the pay gap is being driven more by family background and local market factors than educational achievement.
It added that "cold" social mobility spots often have fewer professional and managerial occupations, fewer outstanding schools, higher levels of deprivation, and moderate population density.
Prof Lindsey Macmillan, director of CEPEO at UCL and research fellow at IFS, said “This new evidence highlights the need for a joined-up approach across the Government, third sector organisations, and employers.
“The education system alone cannot tackle this postcode lottery – a strategy that considers the entire life experience, from birth through to adulthood, is crucial to ensuring fairer life chances for all”.
Laura van der Erve, research economist at IFS and co-author of the report, added: “Not only do children from disadvantaged backgrounds have considerably lower school attainment and lower adult earnings than their peers from more affluent backgrounds, we also find large differences in the outcomes of children from disadvantaged backgrounds across the country.
“This highlights that children’s opportunities in England are still defined by both the family they were born into and the area they grew up in.”