Where you come from doesn’t have to determine where you end up

An Oxford University study has found that three-quarters of people in their late 20s and 30s occupy a different class to the one they were born into. According to a recent report more people are moving down, rather than up, the social ladder as the number of middle-class managerial and professional jobs shrinks, according to an Oxford University study that was recently published. The experience of upward mobility – defined as a person ending up in an occupation of higher status than their father – has become less common in the past four decades.

Dr John Goldthorpe, a co-author of the study and Oxford sociologist, said: “For the first time in a long time, we have got a generation coming through education and into the jobs market whose chances of social advancement are not better than their parents, they are worse.”

I am the first person in my family in my family (first generation to be born in the UK with parents from Jamaica) to go to university where I attained a masters degree. I have been able to work my way up to some extent and both my children have gone to university and have got degrees. However, the number of my son and daughters’ peers who have long-suspended hopes of moving up from their part-time retail jobs after graduation makes me question this.

The big issue for the current generation is how class structures continue to restrict human potential when postgraduate degrees cost at least £5,000, all the way up to mind-boggling figures such as £17,000. Without funding, there is simply no way for many working-class people to be able to afford going to university without straggling themselves with dept.

Whilst the Government constantly advises us that higher education has been made more accessible, but in a way that doesn't fundamentally disturb the existing class order.

Your choices and actions will determine what’s possible

In Britain today, life chances are narrowed for too many by the circumstances of their birth: the home they’re born into, the neighbourhood they grow up in or the jobs their parents do. Patterns of inequality are imprinted from one generation to the next.

I believe strongly that a fair society is an open society, one in which every individual is free to succeed. That is why improving social mobility should be a principal goal of the Government’s social policy (no matter who is in power). Will I experience it in my lifetime? Probably not.

I bought my children up to believe in themselves and to take responsibility for the choices they made and I wanted them to have in their minds that the world was their oyster…. I taught them that just because they had a degree it would not guarantee a great job and loads of money. I believed that even with a degree they would start at the bottom and their efforts would determine what they achieved in their lives.

Lives are not determined by the age of five, 15 or 30. I believe that you may not be where you want to be with your life today. You might not have the job you love. You might not be earning the income you want or be in the relationship you want to be in. In other words, the situation is less than ideal, but our choices and actions will determine what is possible despite the current economic climate.

Employment is a key to social mobility, but it is a fact that too many young people also struggle to get a foothold in the labour market. This is not a new phenomenon – but what are we doing as parents, aunts, grandmothers to help the next generation.

The problem with viewing the world through the lens of your current circumstances is that we may act accordingly. When we’re focused on the fact that we hate our jobs, or don’t have the job we want, we tend to completely lose sight of our vision and endless possibilities and the fact that we are capable of creating the life we want. We still must have a vision of what is important to us and what we want to achieve and do all that we can to make it happen

There will always be barriers and restrictions and maybe we need to look at what’s important and not be driven by consumerism, what car we drive, and how much we can drink at the weekend to escape our realities. We need to be more about values, a sense of community and doing for others. We need to work with each other to support, inform, motivate and encourage the next generation regardless of the current economic climate.

I regard my self as working class and I am proud of it. And I am a mother committed to making a difference both in my family but for all those young people I come into contact with.

What have your experiences of class been – have you moved up or down during your life? Tell us your stories.

By Dawn Stephenson