Recent Changes in Intergenerational Mobility - Evidence from Education in the United Kingdom

Abstract: Education is seen as a human right and a crucial aspect for enabling movements through the societal hierarchy, making it an important issue to study. The purpose of this thesis is to further examine how much the educational gap by parental education and social class has changed in the United Kingdom between 1970 and now. The analysis also explores heterogeneity by gender and region. The analysis is descriptive and includes graphs over inequality in educational attainment, as well as regressions to quantify the association between the mentioned variables. The conclusion of this thesis is that, in absolute terms, social mobility in the educational system has improved between the reference groups used born in 1970 and 2000 to 2001. The country with the most equal opportunities today is Northern Ireland, and the most unequal, Scotland. Furthermore, as social class and parental education seem to lose importance, gender, on the contrary, seems to gain importance for future academic attainments, to the advantage of female students.