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Class Ridden or Meritocratic? An Economic Analysis of Recent Changes in Britain

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  • Fernando Galindo-Rueda
  • Anna Vignoles

Abstract

In a meritocratic society an individual's economic success is determined by their ability, not by their parents' socio-economic status. We assess whether meritocracy has increased in both the British education system and labour market. The richness of our longitudinal data enables us to look at the complex inter-relationship between social class, ability, education and labour market outcomes. In Britain the production of human capital (cognitive ability and education) has become less meritocratic and more influenced by social background. Whilst cognitive ability is an important determinant of labour market success, there is only mild support for an increase in its importance.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE in its series CEE Discussion Papers with number 0032.

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Date of creation: May 2003
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Handle: RePEc:cep:ceedps:0032

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Web page: http://cee.lse.ac.uk/publications.htm

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Cited by:
  1. Jo Blanden & Paul Gregg & Stephen Machin, 2003. "Changes in Educational Inequality," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/079, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
  2. Zöe Kuehn & Pedro Landeras, 2010. "The Effect of Family Background on Student Effort," Working Papers 2010-31, FEDEA.
  3. Gianni De Fraja & Tania Oliveira & Luisa Zanchi, 2010. "Must Try Harder: Evaluating the Role of Effort in Educational Attainment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 577-597, August.
  4. Erich Battistin & Barbara Sianesi, 2006. "Misreported schooling and returns to education: evidence from the UK," CeMMAP working papers CWP07/06, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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