GLOBAL: Obstacles to social mobility

It is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one's parents in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada than in France, Italy, Britain and the United States, according to a new OECD study. But weak social mobility can signal a lack of equal opportunities, constrain productivity and curb economic growth, says a report on the study.

"A Family Affair: Intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries" says climbing the social ladder depends on a range of factors such as individual ability, family and social environments, networks and attitudes. But public action - particularly education and to some extent tax policies - can play a key role in helping people achieve a higher income and social status than their parents.

Across all countries family and socio-economic background are a major influence on a person's level of education and earnings. But the impact of parental education, or lack of it, on a child's future prospects is particularly marked in southern European countries and the UK.

The report says in these countries people whose fathers have a university degree earn on average at least 20% more than children of men whose education ended at upper- secondary level, and well over a third more than children of men who had not reached upper-secondary education.

Well-educated parents tend to have well-educated children for whom it is easier to obtain well-paid jobs. But the odds are stacked against children who do not benefit from this virtuous cycle.

Encouraging greater social mix in the classroom is one of the ways government policy can help children from disadvantaged backgrounds improve their prospects, the report says. Also important is providing quality education to the very young which improves the chances of academic success as the child moves up through the school system.

Segregating pupils too early on the basis of academic ability is found to undermine social mobility. By delaying selection until the age of 16 instead of 10 as is currently the case in some countries, the influence of the school socio-economic environment on pupils' academic performance could be reduced by as much as two-thirds.

The report says social mobility between generations tends to be lower in more unequal societies. But redistributive tax and benefit policies aimed at providing income support or access to education for disadvantaged families may reduce the handicaps of a poorer or less well-educated background.

Any growth-enhancing impact of redistributive policies via increased social mobility, however, would need to be weighed against other, well-established negative effects on growth via reduced labour utilisation.

The report will be published as a chapter in the OECD's Going for Growth report on 10 March. Going for Growth is an annual publication which looks at the progress countries are making towards structural reforms aimed at enhancing long-term economic dynamism.

Another OECD report notes that good secondary schooling is the key to ongoing education and job success. The report says Canada's top-performing high school students are 20 times more likely to access a university than those at the bottom and they are also more likely to choose pure science topics.

The report, Pathways to Success, draws on the results of the PISA tests of 15-year-olds' educational attainment and the Canadian Youth in Transition Survey. It says that while pathways taken by students from high school to university or a successful job entry may vary, they closely depend on learning outcomes in school.

Pathways to Success also shows that students who score lowest in PISA are often those who take longest to complete secondary education and who move directly from school to work. Improving the performance of these students would lead to higher rates of completion of secondary education and post-secondary education pursuits.

Yet another OECD study, The High Costs of Low Educational Performance, shows it is the quality of learning outcomes as measured in comparative tests such as PISA, rather than the length of schooling, that shapes the success of nations.

Using economic growth projections and a number of possible scenarios over the projected life-span of the generation of children born in 2010, the study shows that all countries could benefit significantly from even modest improvements in overall PISA rankings.

In the case of Canada, raising average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years - an increase smaller than that achieved by Poland between 2000 and 2006 - would lead to increases in GDP by 2090 of more than C$3 trillion (US$2.87 trillion) in today's dollars, or the equivalent of twice Canada's current annual GDP. For all OECD countries taken together, the increase would be even bigger, equivalent to around three times their combined current GDP.

"These numbers highlight the enormous impact that improved schooling outcomes have on our long-term economic and social well-being," OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said. "They also show that these improvements can be achieved and that the cost of inaction far outstrips any conceivable cost of improvement."