A re-examination is made of the argument that slightly improved class differentials in full-time education have been offset by a decline in chances of promotion during a career. Past support for this idea has been drawn from age group comparisons usually in the context of surveys of managers. Census data giving the distribution of terminal education ages in the population are used to show that there are in fact important educational differences between separate generations in middle and higher occupations. It is also argued that the comparison of age groups is an unreliable method of studying occupational recruitment and that; in addition, the educational composition of so-called middle-class occupations is very diverse. In terms of their impact on the proportion of early leavers found in middle-class occupations, the apparent changes between generations appear, contrary to expectation, to be rather insignificant. It is inferred that constant social mobility rates cannot be explained by trends in promotions from the ranks on the strength of present evidence.
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References
1.
See also D. V. Glass (ed.) Social Mobility in Great Britain,Routledge , 1954.
2.
ibid., p. 302.
3.
ibid., also p. 315 footnote 5.
4.
National Economic Development Council , Management Recruitment and Development,London: H.M.S.O. , 1965.
5.
Clark, op. cit., p. 28.
6.
Op. cit., p. 302. Also p. 315 footnote 3.
7.
John H. Goldthorpe , `Social Stratification in Industrial Society' in Paul Halmos (ed.), The Development of Industrial Societies. Sociological Review Monograph No. 8, 1964, p. 108.
8.
Census of England and Wales (1961), Education Tables, Table 3, p. 17. Census of England and Wales (1951) General Tables, Table 46, pp. 178-184. ibid., (1961) op. cit., pp. 17-66. The concept of `terminal education age' is used in the Census of England and Wales, and throughout this paper, to mean the age (in completed years) at which a person ceased full-time attendance at an educational establishment. It does not take any kind of part-time study into account.
9.
Throughout the paper the discussion has been confined to the experience of males on the grounds that the occupation of the (male) head of household is usually used to assess the original social position of both males and females.
10.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the natural increase of the population during this period has meant that the absolute number of occupied males in the first two terminal age categories has remained virtually unchanged (at just over 11 million). Since the voluntary extension of full-time education, even in non-selective secondary schools, tends to be more of a middle class than working class phenomenon, it is possible that the absolute number of working class early leavers has increased.
11.
Census (1961). Occupation Tables, p. xi.
12.
See for example Clark, op. cit., p. 61, and Stewart, op. cit., esp. pp. 13-14.
13.
G. Routh , Occupation and Pay in Great Britain, 1906-1960,Cambridge U.P. for National Institute of Economic and Social Research , 1965. Table 2, p. 7.
14.
The inclusion of Personal Service Workers (S.E. Group 7) with other middle class occupations in this paper is clearly arguable but was felt to be justified on account of (i) the fact that a sizeable proportion of occupations in the category are `non-manual' in character, (ii) making the dichotomy at this point produces the `best fit' to the data in Table II. However, as this group is a relatively small one it is doubtful whether its inclusion with `working class' occupations would seriously alter the results in Table III.
15.
For the age group 20-24 the size of the apparent decrease is almost certainly understated since some men of this age are still undergoing full-time education. All but a few of the latter would have entered middle class occupations eventually.
16.
According to Stewart (op. cit. p. 10), 21 per cent of managers began in this way. Clements, who does not offer a comparable proportion, states that 18 per cent of his sample had `risen from the bottom' with the benefit of extended education, whilst a further 37 per cent had `risen from the bottom without that advantage'. In the first group, only `a minority took up manual work; in the second `a sizeable minority' began in clerical jobs (op. cit. App. 2, Table 1, p. 173. Also pp. 66 and 74). 17.5 per cent of Clark's managers started as apprentices and a further 7.8 per cent in other manual jobs (op. cit., Table 5: 1, p. 73).
17.
Amelia I. Harris and Rosemary Clausen , Labour Mobility in Great Britain,A survey undertaken for the Ministry of Labour by the Government Social Survey, London: H.M.S.O.1966. See especially Table 52, p. 51.
18.
The analysis assumes of course that rates of intragenerational mobility between 1953 and 1963 can be applied to the future. Unfortunately it is impossible to compare the recent Ministry of Labour study with its predecessor since different occupational groups were used and job changes covered a whole lifetime (See G. Thomas, Labour Mobility in Great Britain, 1945-1949. The Social Survey for the Ministry of Labour and National Service, cyclostyled Report No. 134). A superficial comparison, however, reveals that at the earlier period 53 per cent of those whose first job was `manipulative', 51 per cent of those whose first job was `operative' and 26 per cent whose first job was `unskilled', were still in the same kind of occupation. The figures given by Harris and Clausen, show that 78 per cent of skilled manual workers, 70 per cent of partly skilled manual workers and 68 per cent of unskilled workers had remained in the same occupational group during the ten years covered by their report. Interpretation is clearly hazardous but the differences between the two sets of figures are nevertheless quite impressive.
19.
A tabulation of Socio-economic groups by T.E.A. is not available for 1951.
20.
All `managers' as such were allocated in the 1961 Classification to Order XXIV and this has involved the movement of many men who would have been classed as professionals at the earlier date. The 1961 system also tends to take a more `senior' view of what constitutes a manager and many occupations with that title but involving less responsibility have now been assigned elsewhere. (See Classification of Occupations, H.M.S.O., 1960, pp. vii and xii.) One must expect to find, therefore, that the proportion of managers with late T.E.A. will appear to have risen somewhat over the intervening period.
21.
S. P. Hutton and J. E. Gerstl , Engineers—the Anatomy of a Profession,London: Tavistock , 1966, pp. 42-43.
22.
G. Routh, `The Social Co-ordinates of Design Technicians', The Draughtsman, Sept. 1961, pp. 7-10. On the basis of the low average age among draughtsmen (85.5 per cent are under 45), Routh argues that the occupation acts as an important mobility channel. He appears however to take little heed of his own finding elsewhere (op. cit., 1965, p. 18), that the ranks of draughtsmen grew by 4.2 per cent annually between 1931 and 1951 and by 9.2 per cent annually between 1951 and 1960. This by itself would account for much of the age skewness.
23.
Op. cit., p. 306.
24.
This should not be confused with the proportion of promoted manual workers who are early leavers—the parameter which, if known, would solve the analogous problems raised by section 3.
25.
Partly this arises because of the prestige hierarchy among institutions of higher education (see A. H. Halsey , `The Changing Functions of Universities' in A. H. Halsey , et al . (eds.) Education, Economy and Society,Glencoe, The Free Press , 1961, pp. 461-462) and because access to the topmost institutions, such as Oxbridge, depend upon background. Thus 53 per cent of Oxbridge undergraduates in 1961 came from independent schools (Robbins Report (1963) App. II (B), p. 8) and there were differences between types of university in the percentage of manual workers' children (ibid. Annex (pp. 428-429)).
26.
R. K. Kelsall , `Getting on at the Grammar' , Times Educational Supplement, March 15, 1963.
27.
For a study of the conditions under which bureaucratization has already flourished in British industry, for its impact on trainee attitudes and its significance for class structure see D. J. Lee , `Industrial Training and Social Class' ; Sociological Review,1966, pp. 269-285 .
28.
A preliminary discussion of this point will be found in D. J. Lee and I. Hordley , `Technical Education—an Alternative Route?'Technical Education, Sept. 1966, pp. 394-395 .
29.
See D. V. Glass, op. cit., Ch. VII, especially p. 179.
