Social mobility has not increased in 30 years and British children are the least likely to escape their background, a report says today. The academic progress of children is overwhelmingly linked to how much their parents earn, according to researchers from the London School of Economics.
They say that the brightest children born into the poorest families in 2000 are, by now, being overtaken in test scores by the least academic children from rich backgrounds. And whereas almost half of 23-year-olds from the wealthiest households had acquired a degree in 2002 only 10 per cent of those with the poorest parents did so.
