Britain's class system – and salaries – inherited from fathers

Study finds background determines success and social mobility in UK, with children of parents with degrees paid 62% more

A father's income determines his son's to a greater extent in Britain than in any other wealthy nation, with half of a high earner's "economic advantage" being transmitted to their children, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has found.


The study showed it is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one's parents in Canada than Britain. Opportunities for the poor in Britain to better themselves are harder to come by than in the United States and France. And the link between a father's background and his son's future in Britain was three times greater than that found in egalitarian Australia, Norway or Denmark.

Britons enjoyed neither equal opportunities nor equal outcomes. Income is shared out less evenly than in most rich countries – among OECD members, only Italy and America are more unequal. The study finds that social mobility between generations tends to be lower in more unequal societies and calls for redistributive tax and benefit policies.

Only France of the countries studied is as "anomalous", said the OECD, which reports on 30 rich nations.

The researchers found that in Britain people whose fathers have a university degree earn on average 62% more than the children of men whose education ended at upper-secondary level. In Europe, only in Portugal is that gap wider.

While there was little difference between the qualifications of the children of graduates and non-graduates, this did not translate into higher wages.

"Britain does not fit the normal analysis here. It is about average in terms of educational social mobility. People can attain a tertiary education but it is doing a lot worse in terms of wage mobility," Duval said. "What you see is a gap between education mobility and wage mobility."

Many experts said the findings showed that Britain was still a stratified society, in which different classes are brought up to follow different rules about how to think, talk and behave.

"I think there are two lessons here. One is the extent of hoarding of opportunities by the middle classes in Britain. These kick away the ladder for the poor," said Richard Reeves of the thinktank Demos. "The other is that we have to begin to measure the so-called soft skills of networking and communications … I think we have to understand why the middle classes put so much time and effort to teach their kids how to speak properly and look someone in the eye when they shake their hand. They know it's worth something."

The research comes as the issue of class returns to frontline debate in British politics. Reeves pointed out that the Conservatives had begun to highlight how "feminism had triumphed over egalitarianism". "I think [shadow universities spokesman] David Willetts has pointed out that women's educational achievement over the decades was basically a story of how middle class women went to university. You begin to understand how much of the opportunity has been captured by sections of society."

Duval said that in other rich nations such as Germany the solution to social mobility was much more straightforward. The route out of poverty in a "normal standard rich country" was through education. The way to make sure people can escape their background is to encourage a greater social mix in the classroom, provide high-quality education to the very young which improves the chances of academic success as the child grows, and stop segregating pupils too early on the basis of academic ability. "In Germany they start segregating at the age of 10. It really has undermined their social mobility."