Is social mobility a good thing?

January 12, 2009 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: Public policy 

Social mobility will be in the news again this week, with the Lib Dems’ commission reporting today and Liam Byrne unveiling the Government white paper tomorrow . But is social mobility necessarily a good thing? This is what I wrote a few weeks ago in the context of the general rise of social pessimism.

‘Is it in the nature of some of the things that seem to be getting better – for example, growing affluence or tolerance – that they contribute to making (some of us) feeling worse? Should we give greater weight in social policy to the subjective than the objective? Interestingly this has been the general shift in how the Government measures public service performance, moving from outcome based indicators to user satisfaction.

‘One example is social mobility. Everyone says they are in favour of having more of it. This is fine when we are talking about absolute social mobility – increasing the numbers getting into the middle class, as happened in the fifties and sixties. But the only way to increase relative social mobility (or to increase absolute social mobility when the middle class has stopped expanding) is to make it easier for people to come down as well as go up.

‘But it is far from clear that a society in which it is easier for middle class people to be downwardly socially mobile would be a more content society. Behavioural economics teaches us that the pleasure of upward social mobility (getting something we didn’t have before) is less than the pain of downward social mobility (losing something we have now). So the net social contentment impact of increasing relative social mobility (disregarding other knock-on effects) is negative. In other words the one thing all leading politician say they want more of is something that will make us less happy as a society!’

Given this it is perhaps not surprising that Liam Byrne called the idea that social mobility must be about people going down as up ‘a classic liberal error’. Gordon Brown intends to emphasise the scope for the managerial and professional classes to grow thus boosting absolutely social mobility. But even if we focus on absolute mobility there is still a distributional aspect.

If our objective is to increase the number of people in higher occupational groups, presumably we want to do this by elevating those (and the offspring of those) currently in the lowest levels; this is certainly the implication of the Government’s messaging. If this is the case the objective is to redistribute opportunity among the middle and lower strata so that the poor have as good a chance as rising up as those just below the higher levels.

But if this is the case - and there are perfectly good grounds of equity and releasing talent for thinking so - then the effect on aggregate social contentment will again be negative. Those just outside the top strata are much more focussed on, and expectant of, shifting up a notch, and will thus be more disappointed when they don’t, than would be those at the bottom who will tend to compare themselves with the people just above them.

I support attempts to improve social mobility, and was pleased to see the most recent data confirming that things have improved over the last few years. But the latest international data indicates that the single best policy is simply to reduce inequality. By lowering the distance people have to travel to move up or down, and making downward mobility less disastrous for personal finances and status, relatively equal societies lower the economic and social barriers to mobility.

But while ‘increasing social mobility’ is a buzz phrase ‘redistributing wealth’ is not. So we can expect all our politicians to conspire it the story that mobility can rise in an unequal society without anyone having to suffer.

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Comments

6 Comments on Is social mobility a good thing?

  1. Movin’ on up « Blimpish || not a conservative, just a very naughty boy on Mon, 12th Jan 2009 10:15 pm

    2. [...] Buiter Movin’ on up January 12, 2009, 10:15 pm Filed under: Social mobility Matthew Taylor makes a good point about the potential negative consequences of seeking to increase social [...]

  2. Blimpish on Mon, 12th Jan 2009 10:28 pm

    3. Good article - I’ve given my own view on my blog, but I think you’re right that social mobility is a convenient fix for things that people on the Left want to do but don’t want to be seen to be doing, although that’s full of tensions. What I don’t get is why the Right takes such an enthusiastic attitude when it’s an argument that they (we, for me) will only ever lose, precisely because mobility is so easily conflated with equality in the public mind.

  3. matthewtaylor on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 8:08 am

    4. True. But child benefit and in-work benefits which go to slightly higher income groups are also rising, and don’t forget the effect of lower mortgage payments

  4. matthewtaylor on Tue, 13th Jan 2009 8:09 am

    5. I’ve done more on this today

  5. Asher Dresner on Thu, 18th Jun 2009 10:34 am

    6. I learn a lot from you, and always enjoy reading your ideas.

    But, some queries on this:

    “…Those just outside the top strata are much more focussed on, and expectant of, shifting up a notch, and will thus be more disappointed when they don’t, than would be those at the bottom who will tend to compare themselves with the people just above them.”

    But by prioritising the subjective happiness of those ‘just outside the top strata’ - the parent at the gate of the independent school wondering whether he can afford to send any more of his kids there, for example - surely you’re prioritising maximising aggregate happiness over a good distribution of happiness? Why is that a good idea?

    “By lowering the distance people have to travel to move up or down, and making downward mobility less disastrous for personal finances and status, relatively equal societies lower the economic and social barriers to mobility.”

    I’d be interested to read your thoughts on how to lower ‘the distance people have to travel to move up or down’. Firstly, what it means in practice, and secondly, whether you’d accept the need to take into account the effects on happiness of any policy proposals which tried to achieve it!

  6. matthewtaylor on Fri, 19th Jun 2009 8:58 am

    7. Thanks Asher. I guess my point is that the evidence linking social equity to contentment is much stronger that that linking social mobility to contentment. Because going down hurts more than going up feels good a more socially mobile society will tend to be less content. However, greater mobility would probably contribute to greater economic dynamism and - all things being equal - this should help reduce poverty and improve public provision so it is a complex area. Overall, however, I think we should avoid simply asserting that social mobility is a good thing or that it is only about the people going up (which we can all agree with) and not also about people at the top and middle going down (which is much more problematic)

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