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Social Mobility Commission. (2024) Childhood origins of social mobility. London: Social Mobility Commission.

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Chapter 3. Children’s lives

This chapter looks at experiences of school, experiences of the pandemic and various dimensions of wellbeing. The key findings are:

 

In contrast to the 2016 report, we find no differences across socio-economic background in truancy and exclusion from school. We find a reverse gradient in drinking alcohol, vaping and illegal drugs, which is to say higher levels of these activities among school children from more-affluent families.

 

Our findings are indicative of a potential crisis in adolescent mental health in the UK. On some items, such as feeling nervous and losing confidence in new situations, 35% of girls aged 11 to 15 agree – a strikingly high number.

 

We find that gender differences in mental wellbeing are often larger than differences across socio-economic background, although on most measures there is also evidence that those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are worse off than those from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

 

We find that the inequalities among 11-year-olds that we reported in 2016 in conduct disorders, emotional symptoms, and hyperactivity and inattention remain among children aged 17. For example, lower-working-class parents are 3 times more likely to report issues relating to hyperactivity and inattention than higher professional parents. However, the differences are almost non-existent when relying on children’s own self-reports.

 

Experiences of the pandemic: we find that children from lower socio-economic groups are more likely to report that they had issues during lockdown with having a suitable place to work at home and a suitable device to work on. For example, 18% of lower-working-class children report that they relied on their mobile phone to do school work, and a further 9% had no suitable device. The figures were 5% and 1% among children in higher professional families.

 

There are differences in children’s reports of whether they plan to go to university: 78% of children of higher professional parents reported planning to go to university compared with 58% of lower-working-class children. Children from lower-working-class backgrounds are more likely to report that this is because they would rather get a job, or because their family cannot afford it.

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