Social inequality is persistent and systematic. Often where you start in life is where you’ll end up. When paths to opportunity seem blocked for so many, it’s no surprise we see negative situations develop. If you believe your only path to recognition, and inclusion, is taking you down a criminal route we’ve failed you. Who’s we? All of us.
On our Employers Social Mobility Alliance (ESMA) site, we note “The UK is one of the most unequal countries in Europe, with levels of socio-economic inequality comparable to the USA. The poorest half of the population receives around 20 per cent of all incomes, and the richest half receives the remaining 80 per cent. Poor health, educational performance, and weak social mobility are all features of our unequal society.” These facts are further echoed in the 2021 Social Mobility Barometer study carried out by the Social Mobility Commission.
We are trapping too many in a negative cycle of low expectation and opportunity. It’s been a persistent problem. That is why we founded ESMA. Our experience showed incredible work happening across the social mobility spectrum, but we found it be too fragmented. The work that was being done was fragmented in the way it linked across a person's life stages – for example, you don’t fix a GCSE level school attainment gap between “haves” and “have nots” by just focusing on GCSE years; you have to start from the day we are born, and look at how advantage and disadvantage play out right up to the start of a working life and beyond. So how do we join up to be more systematic in supporting people to help the achieve and succeed from their first breaths in this world of ours?
Fragmentation also shows up across organisations – from charities to social enterprises, and from business to government there are many fantastic initiatives. But they are not joined up. Individually few have the resources to work at scale and support enough people each year. So how do we fix this?
This is why we founded ESMA; to develop a platform to help identify best practice in the area of social mobility, to share it freely, and to bring organisations together to solve a problem they cannot solve on their own.
The Social Mobility Business Partnership is one example of what we’re trying to foster; Law Firms, sports teams, businesses, and schools are now coming together to help young people to get work experience, develop networks, and learn key skills. The ambition is to work on handing the baton forward to support the young people who they work with into the first years of working life, and also to start reaching down to earlier life stages to support schools, and parents to access opportunity in more equal ways for all. We want to see more of that; how do we build a supportive “family” and network for everyone to lean on, to help them succeed?
Not everyone starts in a great place in life. So if the evidence tells us you are more likely to end up where you started in the UK than anywhere else, isn’t that a wasted opportunity for us all?
Do you think you can help us? Do you want to think big with us for the benefit of all? Jump in; get in touch.
