Hypocrisy and confusion distort the debate on social mobility

Blog post only

If you think the public debate on taxes often misses some of the points, you should pay attention to debates on migration and social mobility. Those discussions tap into people’s fears and aspirations, but routinely miss the real economic undercurrents. This Martin Wolf column from 2019 (Hypocrisy and confusion distort the debate on social mobility (ft.com)) was an eye opener for me at the time. We tend to think of life outcomes in terms of efforts and there is some basic recognition that access to opportunity matter. But looked at a global level, economic currents create opportunities and, in particular, a demand for certain jobs.

Since the Second World War, there has been a rising demand of ’managerial and professional jobs’ (from 11% all the way to 40%). By necessity, those jobs were filled with people who had different social backgrounds. Education had very little to do with that upward social mobility. But the growth has stagnated and may even reverse. And that implies that there’ll be downward social mobility, something people have a very adverse reaction to in their personal life. Even in a stable economy, every upward social mobility implies downward social mobility.

Social mobility still has a meritocratic positive note to it and on a first principles basis, it still looks preferable (not least because of the positive impact on social cohesion and people’s aspirations). But the meritocratic tone misses that the bandwidth is determined by global economic factors which are beyond people’s control.

Wolf notes we should focus on the economy if we care about social mobility and he’s right. But even here, there is a limit to how much an individual country can do. All developed countries (and even developing ones) seem to want to attract on high innovation businesses that require an educated workforce, which means the limits of that strategy might be reached too. So, here too, social mobility seems an outcome to respond to rather than something that can proactively be pushed upwards.

Obvious disclaimers: this is not advice. These views are my own and do not necessarily represent my employer.