Social Mobility

(asked on 23rd June 2020) - View Source

Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, how her Department measures social mobility.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 30th July 2020

The Government looks at a wide basket of indicators to measure social mobility. Our principle measure for understanding the outcomes of children based on their socio-economic backgrounds is the disadvantage attainment gap, which captures the difference in test and exam performance between children who are eligible for Free School Meals and those who are not.

On top of this, the Government collects and publishes a range of data that allows us to understand how social mobility and disadvantage relate to educational and other outcomes. These include attainment in the Early Years and at age 19, participation and progression of disadvantaged pupils entering further and higher education, labour market outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and different indicators of disadvantage such as Care status and Special Educational Needs status. Our ground-breaking Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset has linked education records with tax data to identify the long term labour market outcomes of individual education programmes.

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