Breaking the 'Class' Ceiling? Social Mobility into Britain's Elite Occupations

This project explores rates of social mobility into, and within, Britain's elite occupations. Improving social mobility is a key policy objective of all Britain's main political parties. This usually centres on a commitment to raise the numbers of those from lower occupational class backgrounds who move into higher class groups during their working lives. However, this focus on class mobility misses potentially important differences in rates of mobility between occupations - particularly elite or prestigious occupations. In the past, such detailed analysis has not been possible as data sets have simply not had big enough sample sizes to meaningfully examine mobility into individual occupations. Yet in 2014 new questions on parental occupation were introduced to the Labour Force Survey (LFS), Britain's largest employment survey with approximately 105,000 respondents. This project capitalises on this new data to show, for the first time, how rates of upward mobility vary between Britain's 29 most elite occupations. It also examines the relationship between rates of mobility and other forms of disadvantage, such as gender and ethnicity, in each of these occupations.

This new analysis will provide unprecedented insight into the relative social exclusivity of Britain's elite occupations. Yet there is also a danger of reducing social mobility to a one-dimensional issue of 'fair access' to elite occupations. All too often academic and policy research concentrates on rates of occupational entry and neglects what happens to the upwardly mobile once they have entered professions. My own preliminary research, for example, indicates that the upwardly mobile may face the kind of 'glass ceiling', in terms of pay and career progression, traditionally associated with women and ethnic minorities. The second objective of this research is therefore to examine how the upwardly mobile fare within elite occupations and whether they face barriers in achieving the highest levels of success. To achieve this, the project will proceed in two stages. It will begin by using the LFS to examine whether the upwardly mobile within elite occupations earn less than those from privileged backgrounds. It will then use longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Study/Understanding Society to examine whether there are particular points in elite career trajectories where the upwardly mobile tend to fall behind more privileged colleagues.

The second stage will deepen this quantitative analysis by providing three qualitative case studies that probe the experience of mobility in three elite occupations - journalism, law and banking. The aim of this qualitative dimension, incorporating 90 life history interviews with the mobile and immobile, will be to gain a more in-depth understanding of whether the mobile face lingering disadvantages within elite occupations. In particular, interviews will probe whether the mobile face discrimination in these settings, whether their ambitions, aspirations and wellbeing differ to those from privileged backgrounds, and how the transparency of entry requirements and progression criteria compare in each occupation.

Working in partnership with key policymakers, mobility charities, and professional associations, this project will make an invaluable contribution to the public debate on increasing access to, and reducing disadvantage within, Britain's elite occupations. Not only will it aid our understanding of how class inequalities are reproduced within such settings, but it will also influence policy initiatives aimed at breaking down elitism and increasing the representativeness of the key shapers of British public life.

The project aims to produce a strong evidence base from which to engage with the wide public and policy interest in social mobility. Its key contribution will be to a) fill a conspicuous gap in existing research by providing, for the first time, fine-grained analysis of mobility into individual elite occupations and b) interject in narrow political debates that focus on mobility as occupational access and instead provide insights into how the mobile progress within elite occupations, and specifically whether they a face a 'class ceiling' in terms of pay progression. To fully advance the economic and social impact of this project, three key groups of non-academic users have been identified (academic users have been detailed in 'academic beneficiaries') who will benefit in the following ways:

1. Government and Policy Sector
Three policy actors will act as knowledge exchange partners. First, I will work closely with Paul Johnston from The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCP) throughout the project and will present findings and a bespoke research report for the SMCP. Second, the Co-Chairs of the Diversity and Business Research Council have requested a research paper based on the project findings concerning social mobility and business for the UK Enterprise Research Centre work package on 'diversity & SMEs'. Third, Director of the Sutton Trust Lee Elliot Major, a major policy figure in social mobility, has agreed to join the project advisory group. Finally, in Year 3 I will organise a knowledge exchange workshop for a broader network of 15-20 key policy actors, including the The Social Mobility Foundation, Equality Trust, and The Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

2. Professional Associations
While issues of 'Equality and Diversity' are now strongly embedded in the occupational culture of elite professions, the issue of class and social mobility is largely absent from this diversity agenda. In order to engage with practitioners in elite occupations, the project has two key strategies. First, it will work directly with representatives from key professional associations - The Bar Council, National Union of Journalists and The Chartered Banker Institute. These practitioners will help inform the project's three qualitative case studies, sit on the advisory group, help organise a second knowledge exchange seminar for professional associations and, finally, I will work with each to establish special interest groups dedicated to promoting social mobility within their respective professions. Second, further engagement with practitioners will be achieved through a two-month placement and subsequent one-year Fellowship at The Professional Associations Research Network (PARN), the key membership organisation for UK professional bodies. Over the course of this partnership, I will co-publish findings in PARN's 'Professional Body Sector Review', design questions on class and social mobility to be included in PARN's annual benchmarking survey, and co-produce a consultation document providing guidance on 'good practice on social mobility' for the professions.

3. Public engagement
The project will also include a range of innovative strategies for sharing the project findings with the public. In particular, award-winning theatre company The Paper Birds will use the research to write a play entitled 'Mobile', to be performed at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and then toured nationally. The play will use anonymised data from my narrative accounts of social mobility to create a fictionalised drama, with five post-show discussions and questionnaires helping to gauge audience reactions to the research. In addition I will draw on my own skills as a journalist to disseminate findings through press releases and by directly pitching stories to crossover media outlets like The Conversation. Finally, I will use the project website and LSE's widely read Impact of the Social Sciences Blog to publish summaries of the findings.