ABSTRACT
When, under recent Labour governments, the British political classes renewed their interest in social mobility, they agreed on three main points: rates of ‘social mobility’ had shown a substantial decline; social mobility was highly desirable; and therefore the country needed to have its rates of social mobility increased. In fact, as the first part of this chapter shows, politicians and commentators seriously misunderstood both the meaning of social mobility and the evidence about its changing patterns. Looking at recent research studies, it is however only fair to acknowledge that some of this confusion can be excused because of the complexity of measuring mobility, the paucity of comparable data, and a lack of agreement among social scientists.
