Abstract
The UK government has expressed a desire to increase social mobility, with policies to help achieve this aim focused on reducing inequalities in educational attainment. This paper draws together established and new information about the contribution that higher education can make to social mobility using a life-course approach, considering differences by family background in terms of university attendance and achievement, as well as occupation and earnings following graduation. We find substantial socio-economic differences at each stage. Young people from poorer backgrounds are, on average, less likely to go to university than their richer peers. Even among the selected group who do go to university, they are less likely to attend the highest status institutions, less likely to graduate, and less likely to achieve the highest degree classes. These differences in degree outcomes contribute to the lower average earnings of graduates from poorer families, but earnings differentials go well beyond those driven purely by degree attainment or institution attended. The evidence strongly suggests that, even after taking these factors into account, graduates from affluent families are more likely to obtain a professional job and to see higher earnings growth in the labour market. We discuss the implications of these findings for the prospects of higher education as a route to greater social mobility.
Highlights
There is a well-established literature highlighting that children from more affluent families earn more across the life course than their peers from less affluent families, and that the UK is a poor performer in this regard, with a high degree of inequality of opportunity (Blanden et al, 2007; Corak, 2013; Jerrim and Macmillan, 2015; Gregg et al, 2016)
Young people from poorer backgrounds are, on average, less likely to go to university than their richer peers
Even among the selected group who do go to university, they are less likely to attend the highest status institutions, less likely to graduate, and less likely to achieve the highest degree classes
Summary
There is a well-established literature highlighting that children from more affluent families earn more across the life course than their peers from less affluent families, and that the UK is a poor performer in this regard, with a high degree of inequality of opportunity (Blanden et al, 2007; Corak, 2013; Jerrim and Macmillan, 2015; Gregg et al, 2016). In new analysis presented in this paper, we find that the average graduate wage for a child from a poor family is comparable to the average wage of all graduates and non-graduates combined from affluent families, and that these differences in earnings between graduates from different backgrounds persist even once we account for educational attainment, including university attended and subject studied. This highlights that getting a good degree from an elite university is not enough to equalize career opportunities in the professions and prime-age earnings for those from different socioeconomic backgrounds. While much of the policy emphasis to date has focused on widening access to university, including to high-status institutions, our research highlights a need for policy intervention throughout the student life-course, to ensure equality of opportunity and outcomes for those from different socio-economic backgrounds
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