Britain’s social pessimism revealed. Half of Brits believe background determines success

A new social mobility barometer poll shows that Britain has succumbed to social pessimism. Half of Brits believe that background determines where you end up in society.

The results of a new YouGov poll, measuring social mobility, shows that British society has succumbed to pessimism. According to the findings, half of Brits believe that background and who your parents determine where you end up in society.

And youngsters are even more pessimistic than their parents and grand-parents as 50% of them agree that background determines success, compared with 40% of those aged 65 and over.

“Young people increasingly feel like they are on the wrong side of a profound unfairness in British society – and they are unhappy about it,” said Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, what could be dubbed the ‘revenge of the young’ was evident at the general election with record numbers of young people turning out to vote.”

The social mobility barometer showed that half of young people think the situation is getting worse with only 30% of 18- to 24-year-olds believing it is becoming easier to move up in British society.

“As the national youth council of the UK, we hear from young people all the time that they are struggling and do not have hope for the future”, said Jo Hobbs, chief executive of the British Youth Council.”This is why we believe it is crucial that young people are given a voice and are empowered to take an active role in decisions that affect their lives.”

Meanwhile, only a fifth of 18- to 24-year-olds believe they have a better level of job security compared with their parents, and only 17% say they have better job satisfaction.

“Those born in the 1980s are the first post-war cohort not to start their working years with higher incomes than their immediate predecessors. Home ownership, the aspiration of successive generations of ordinary people, is in sharp decline among the young,” 20th centuryMilburn noted.”Britain’s deep social mobility problem, for this generation of young people, in particular, is getting worse not 20th-centurypromise that each generation would be better off than the preceding one is being broken.”

A large majority of Brits, some 79%, believe that there is a large gap between the social classes in Britain today and they also think that poor people are held back during every stage of their lives, starting with childhood. And according to the poll, those with low incomes have smaller chances of going to universities and getting into a professional career.

Nearly half of all Brits say they belong to the working class and just over a third, 36%, think of themselves as middle class with just one per cent identifying as upper class. The results also underline that 78% of those who grew up in a working-class family classify themselves as this now. And a quarter of those that said that their family was of working class, testify that their background has held them back in life.

Geographical differences take their toll

One key finding is that the public believes a geographical divide exists in Britain today with nearly three-quarters of people, 71 percent, say there are ‘fairly or very’ large differences in opportunity depending on where you live in the country.

“The research also exposes a deep geographic lottery in Britain today where large majorities of people from the regions feel they have been left behind”, the Commissioner also said. “The growing sense that we have become a divided ‘us and them’ society is deeply corrosive of our cohesion as a nation.”

People living in Scotland, Wales and the North East are the ones more likely to think that such geographical disparities exist. And around 47 percent of those who moved from where they grew up say if they had stayed where they were, they would not have as many opportunities in life.

The Social Mobility Poll also underlines that the British citizens believe that authorities should do more for those at that suffer from poverty. Over 6 in 10 people feel that those who are ‘just about managing’ are not getting enough support from the government, while 49 percent say the least well off are not getting enough support.

Alan Milburn says politicians and the government, in particular, should take this as evidence of criticism, coming from the British citizens.

“It is a wake-up call for the new government when 6 in 10 people say not enough is being done to help those treadmill families who are running hard just to stand still,” Milburn said.

The results also show that the government should make social mobility issues a priority.