IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ifs/fistud/v33y2012i2p265-286.html

The Quest for More and More Education: Implications for Social Mobility

Author

Listed:
  • Joanne Lindley
  • Stephen Machin

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the quest for more and more education and its implications for social mobility. We document very rapid educational upgrading in Britain over the last thirty years or so and show that this rise has featured faster increases in education acquisition by people from relatively rich family backgrounds. At the same time, wage differentials for the more educated have risen. Putting these two together (more education for people from richer backgrounds and an increase in the payoff to this education) implies increasing within generation inequality and, by reinforcing already existent inequalities from the previous generation, this has hindered social mobility. We also highlight three important aspects that to date have not been well integrated into the social mobility literature: the acquisition of postgraduate qualifications; gender differences; and the poor education performance of men at the lower end of the education distribution.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Joanne Lindley & Stephen Machin, 2012. "The Quest for More and More Education: Implications for Social Mobility," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 265-286, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:33:y:2012:i:2:p:265-286
    DOI: j.1475-5890.2012.00161.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2012.00161.x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/j.1475-5890.2012.00161.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Machin & Richard Murphy, 2017. "Paying out and crowding out? The globalization of higher education," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(5), pages 1075-1110.
    2. Lucia Rizzica, 2018. "Raising aspirations and higher education: evidence from the UK’s Widening Participation policy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1188, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Joanne Lindley & Steven Mcintosh, 2017. "Finance Sector Wage Growth and the Role of Human Capital," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(4), pages 570-591, August.
    4. Lena Imeraj & Sylvie Gadeyne, 2024. "Trapped in Place? Ethnic and Educational Heterogeneity in Residential Mobility and Integration of Young Adults in Brussels," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 40(1), pages 1-28, December.
    5. Joanne Lindley & Steven McIntosh, 2019. "The Social Mobility of Home Ownership: To What Extent Have the Millennials Fared Worse?," Working Papers 2019012, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    6. Jo Blanden & Lindsey Macmillan, 2014. "Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?," CASE Papers case179, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    7. Jennings, Colin, 2015. "Collective choice and individual action: Education policy and social mobility in England," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 288-297.
    8. Lin Yang, 2018. "The relationship between poverty and inequality: Resource constraint mechanisms," CASE Papers /212, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    9. Lin Yang, 2018. "The net effect of housing-related costs and advantages on the relationship between inequality and poverty," CASE Papers /211, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    10. Yang, Lin, 2018. "The relationship between poverty and inequality: resource constraint mechanisms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103463, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Lindley, Joanne & McIntosh, Steven, 2015. "Growth in within graduate wage inequality: The role of subjects, cognitive skill dispersion and occupational concentration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 101-111.
    12. Jo Blanden & Lindsey Macmillan, 2014. "Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?," CASE Papers case179, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    13. repec:cep:sticas:/179 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:33:y:2012:i:2:p:265-286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.