Intergenerational inequality and solidarity

Young people are likely to be worse off than their parents, says the Social Mobility Commission; meanwhile, family ties mean older people support policies that prioritise their younger relatives

Sep 18, 2023

Intergenerational inequality

The Government’s Social Mobility Commission (SMC) has published its annual State of the Nation report. This year’s update suggests that younger generations are in danger of being worse off than their predecessors, due to stagnating wages, regional inequalities and an “overheating” housing market, especially in London. It also highlights the increasing importance of inheritance in influencing life outcomes.

The SMC is right about all of these contributing factors, and should be applauded for drawing attention to the scale of intergenerational inequality alongside regional inequalities in the UK - inequalities of time, as well as of space.

Its report is also impressively detailed in its collation and analysis of data linked to social mobility, with a new online data explorer built on its own measurement framework (the Social Mobility Index). The data includes detailed geographic breakdowns and covers three types of indicators: mobility outcomes (where people end up - their socio-economic class, income, education and housing), intermediate outcomes (the experiences of young people as they move through education and into the labour market), and drivers of social mobility (the background conditions that make social mobility easier).

The new interim chair of the SMC, Alun Francis, is right to point out that “a few Dick Whittington stories” of people succeeding despite the odds do not mean that we live in a fair country, and to suggest that policy needs to focus on the lowest 20% of earners, many leaving school without basic English and Maths.

However, it’s hard to ignore the feeling that, like the Levelling Up White Paper, the SMC’s report is a good answer to an artificially narrow question, for (at least) two reasons. First, it ignores some of the underlying structural factors that turbocharge regional inequality and undermine social mobility, such as the distorting effect of an oversized finance sector on the rest of the economy, which helps to account for the fact that most of the proceeds of growth go to those who already have the most. Second, although the report acknowledges that higher inequality is a barrier to social mobility (“more inequality entails less mobility, and this relationship holds within countries”), it doesn’t follow this observation through to its logical conclusion - that the priority should be to reduce the size of the rungs on the ladder, rather than helping more people to climb it.

Ultimately, however much data we have at our fingertips, one simple truth is inescapable: an unequal society can never be truly meritocratic, since unequal outcomes in one generation will inevitably lead to unequal opportunities in the next, even if they were the product of genuinely equal opportunities. The Oxford historian Selina Todd argues that, as a result, social mobility is a chimera in societies like ours that have high levels of inequality. Meanwhile, the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel details how "meritocratic hubris" leads many to believe their success is their own doing and to look down on those who haven't made it, provoking resentment and inflaming the divide between "winners" and "losers" in the new economy.

As Aveek Bhattacharya argues in a pamphlet for the Social Market Foundation: “Rather than returning to social mobility as a goal, an alternative way forward is to embrace a conception of equality of opportunity as valuable for self-realisation, emphasising the value of every individual having a better chance to realise their potential, whether or not that moves them up the social hierarchy.”

Intergenerational solidarity

Meanwhile, Family Matters, a new report from the Nuffield Politics Research Centre and the Resolution Foundation, suggests that all of this intergenerational inequality is producing much more intergenerational solidarity than might have been expected. Most older people want the government to do more to help the young, largely motivated by concern for their younger relatives.

The researchers found that having younger family members who are struggling financially is a key motivation for older adults to embrace policies which offer support to young adults. This includes free vocational education and childcare, as well as more affordable housing in their local area. The researchers call this group “family fortunes voters”, and it is estimated to represent 17% of the electorate (people aged 40+ with younger relatives that are also struggling financially).

They found that 65% of over 60s support increased spending on more free vocational education, 61% support more local affordable housing, and 47% support more free childcare. Middle-aged adults (40-59) are similarly enthusiastic. In all cases, policies aimed at young adults are more popular among those with struggling younger relatives than those without, sometimes by a large margin.

So there’s reason for hope; most voters are much less selfish than some think, and there is such a thing as society, with families and intergenerational bonds at the centre of it.

Upcoming events for your diary

If you’re coming to the Conservative or Labour Party conferences, we’ll be speaking about solutions to poverty and inequalities - and public attitudes to the problems and the solutions - at both. Come and see us at joint events with the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the APPG for Inclusive Growth. No need to book in advance (although you will need a conference pass in both cases to access the venues).

What’s the Conservative agenda for fixing poverty and tackling inequalities?

Tuesday 3 October, 13:00–14:30 BST
Lancaster Suite, Midland Hotel, Manchester

John Penrose, MP for Weston-super-Mare and Co-Chair of the APPG for Inclusive Growth
Will Snell, Chief Executive, Fairness Foundation
Bobby Duffy, Director, the Policy Institute at King's College London
Julia Davies, Angel Investor, Founder of We Have the POWER, and member of Patriotic Millionaires
Sophia Worringer, Deputy Policy Director, Centre for Social Justice

What’s Labour’s agenda for fixing poverty and tackling inequalities?

Tuesday 10 October, 13:00–14:30 BST
The ACC, Meeting Room 24, Liverpool

Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, and Co-Chair of the APPG for Inclusive Growth
Bobby Duffy, Director, the Policy Institute at King's College London
Emma Revie, Chief Executive, Trussell Trust
Will Snell, Chief Executive, Fairness Foundation
Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist, author, and former BBC social affairs editor

Recent events to catch if you missed them

We took part in a webinar on wealth inequality last week hosted by Bristol University Press. I spoke about public attitudes to wealth and wealth inequality, following talks by the author Stewart Lansley on the state of wealth inequality in the UK, and by Priya Sahni-Nicholas, co-director of the Equality Trust, on some of the solutions. You can watch the full recording of the session on YouTube below.