Updating 'Childhood Origins of Social Mobility' Report

The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) monitors progress towards improving social mobility in the UK and promotes social mobility in England.

It is an independent statutory body created by an Act of Parliament and is sponsored by the Cabinet Office (CO).

The report "The childhood origins of social mobility: socio-economic inequalities and changing opportunities" (henceforth "the original report") was published in 2016 and there are reasons to expect that the trends and patterns of inequality may have been evolving since then.

The intervening period has seen increased levels of child poverty and the pandemic, with its extensive school closures, has highlighted concerns about inequality in conditions at home for study.

It is worth remembering that the original report in 2016 was commissioned in response to Robert Putnam's influential book Our Kids, and many of the domains of family life and individual indicators of life at home were chosen to match, as far as possible, Putnam's book.

These domains of life included: Parental Engagement, including time use ("Gruffalo time") and help with homework, parental support and eating family meals together, as well as physical and cultural activities, Children's behaviours including truancy and drug use, as well as wellbeing and behavioural problems, and 3) Parents social networks and community.

Ten data sources were used in the original report and more recent data points are available for the majority of those.