Why It's Harder to Earn More Than Your Parents | The Economist

Nov 25, 2021 • In the 21st century it's got harder to earn more than your parents and to climb the social ladder. What's gone wrong, and what can be done to change this? Film supported by @Mishcon de Reya LLP

We'll Never Have It So Good Again

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The middle classes can no longer afford the houses and schools that their parents did – and the future looks even more squeezed for their children

The Government’s social mobility tsar, Alan Milburn, will this week warn that social mobility has gone into reverse. For the first time in a century, the middle classes are becoming worse off. In the words of one Whitehall official: “Social mobility is no longer just an issue for children from poor families. There’s a real risk that children from families with above-average incomes will in future have lower living standards than their parents.”

To which I can only ask: you mean you’ve only just noticed? What took you so long?

It has been at least 20 years since I realised that, even though I was earning more than my father had ever made in his life, I could never hope to afford to live in a house like the one I grew up in, nor give my children the kind of education he provided for me and my sisters. And I am not the child of a wealthy man. My father was a diplomat. He earned a modest Civil Service salary. But my mother had inherited a few thousand pounds from her late father. So in 1964 they used that money to buy a five-bedroom detached house opposite Kew Gardens in south-west London. It cost £8,000.

In the early 1980s my parents sold it for the impressive-sounding sum of £120,000, having given me the chance to buy it first. I had to decline their offer: £120,000 was way beyond my means at the time. But I was at least able to get on to the housing ladder. In 1984, my then girlfriend, now wife, Clare and I bought a tiny one-bed Fulham flat for £34,000. So that was more than four times what my parents had paid for a large house. But it was at least affordable: about twice our joint incomes at the time.

Meanwhile, my old family home kept appreciating. Had house prices kept pace with inflation, one worth £8,000 in 1964 should now cost a little over £137,000. Well, in August 2011, our former home was placed on the market. The asking price was £2,475,000. So a house that had once been affordable by a young, middle-class couple was now being aimed at buyers who were, by any normal standards, very rich indeed. Read on and comment » | David Thomas | Monday, October 14, 2013

Nick Clegg: Outdated Snobbish Attitudes Are Hobbling Society
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says the UK must abandon "outdated snobbish attitudes" in order to promote social mobility.

Nick Clegg: I Was Wrong to Use Father’s Help to Secure Bank Internship
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Nick Clegg’s drive to stop privileged children with "sharp-elbowed" parents monopolising internships was undermined when he admitted securing a placement at a bank with the help of his father.

The Deputy Prime Minister was embarrassed as he launched his landmark social mobility strategy, which includes at its heart a plan to open up work experience to all classes, after it emerged that he also employed unpaid interns in his parliamentary office.

Speaking at an event to launch the strategy, he said it had been “wrong” of his wealthy banker father to have secured him a placement at a Finnish bank by “having a word” with a friend who worked there.

“I think the whole system was wrong,” he added. “I am not the slightest bit ashamed of saying that we all inhabited a system that was wrong.”

Mr Clegg announced that he was banning the practice of unpaid work experience across his party after a former intern came forward to say that he had not even been paid out of pocket expenses such as travel and lunch while working for free for the Liberal Democrat leader.

The Coalition is moving to take action on the “tacit conspiracy” which sees privileged professionals give their children a leg up in life by using contacts to secure internships, which are often viewed as the first step on the career ladder.

As part of the strategy, Mr Clegg called on employers to pay interns the minimum wage, or at least reasonable expenses, to avoid excluding those who could not afford to work for free. » | Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent | Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Labour Attacks Nick Clegg Over Social Mobility Plan
BBC: Nick Clegg has come under fire over his plan to improve social mobility, with Labour claiming it is "mission impossible" with him at the helm.

In an angry Commons exchange, deputy leader Harriet Harman accused Mr Clegg of "betraying a generation of young people" by raising tuition fees.

But the deputy PM said Labour had failed to improve social mobility despite doubling public spending.

He said the coalition's "overriding mission" was to make society fairer.

The deputy prime minister faced questions in the Commons after unveiling the government's social mobility and child poverty strategies – entitled Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers.

He said he wanted to stop people getting on in life purely because of "who they know" and has announced that informal internships for young people in Whitehall would be banned.

"They should get an internship because of what they know," he told the BBC.

"It's not just because of someone who's met somebody at the tennis club or the golf club, who's whispered something into someone's ear and they've got an internship for their son or daughter." (+ video) » | Tuesday, April 05, 2011

European Muslims Become Socially Mobile
Photo of Dutch lawyer, Famile Arslan, courtesy of TIME
”It’s a Great Time to Be a European Muslim. Everyone’s Focused on Us, So It’s an Opportunity, if You Take It.”

TIME: When Famile Arslan showed up for her first day of work, the receptionist pointed her toward the broom closet. "'The cleaning supplies are over there,'" Arslan recalls being told. "I had to say, 'No, I'm not the cleaner. I'm the lawyer.'" In fairness to the receptionist, Arslan was making history that morning, as the first attorney to wear a hijab in the Netherlands. Ten years on, she has her own practice in the Hague. Her name's on the door, her cat Hussein pads around and a veiled assistant fields phone calls. "People keep telling me how successful I am," says Arslan. "But I'm not all that successful. Had I not been a migrant woman in a hijab, I could have gone much further." Still, when younger Muslims ask Arslan how to climb the professional ladder, she's optimistic. "If you think strategically, this is a great time to be a European Muslim," she argues. "Everyone's focused on us, so it's an opportunity — if you take it."

For European Muslims, the era after Sept. 11, 2001, has been both the best and worst of times. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained relations between Europe's governments and its Muslims; there has been a rise in Islamophobic incidents; the specter of Islamic radicalism dominates media debates and shapes government policy. But the era in which Muslims became a feared minority also saw another trend: the rise of a Euro-Muslim middle class. A Gallup poll last year found European Muslims to be at least as likely to identify themselves as British, French or German as the general populations. Migrants' children have begun moving from corner shops and factory floors to offices. They swap business cards at Muslim networking events like Britain's Emerald Network or Holland's Toward a New Start, a group for Moroccans who, in the words of founder Ahmed Larouz, are "the sort of people who say, 'I want to be CEO of Philips.'" Parisian professionals go to Les Dérouilleurs, a networking salon whose name (the Un-Rusty Ones) jabs at the stereotype of les rouilleurs — jobless Maghrebi youth "rusting away" in the banlieues.

That's all good news. More disheartening was news in January that the first person convicted under British laws targeting the preparation of terrorist acts was Sohail Qureshi, a 29-year-old dentist from London. That followed the arrest in Britain last summer of three doctors and an engineer on suspicion of attempting to strike Glasgow's airport with a car containing propane-gas canisters. This has challenged the stereotype of jihadis as disenfranchised madrasah students, presenting Europe with a troubling question: Why would those who have made a success of their professional lives be drawn to violent extremism? Breaking Through >>> By Carla Power

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