The FT has reported today that:
More than four-fifths of employees at PwC UK come from a higher socio-economic background, according to data that for the first time show the difficulty facing many from poorer families of breaking into professional services.
First, congratulations to PWC for publishing this data. That took some courage. I acknowledge it.
Second, the data is worrying. What it makes very clear is how limited is the opportunity to move social position within a society that is deeply divided by class. How to tackle that issue remains very largely unknown, but acknowledgement of the issue is a key first step.
Third, in that case what this suggests is that better data on many aspects of employment is required from employers. Gender, class, and race and ethnicity pay gaps are all required now by that most important of stakeholders of all corporations, which is what employees are.
There is no accounting standard on this issue. There should be. It's on my list.
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Interesting. I recently watched The Up Series of documentaries by Michael Apsted. Originally conceived to show how the class you are born in to determines the choices and outcomes available to you it morphed into a more sociological study of life itself.
That said the upper class girls and boys ALL do well in terms of comfort and security, only Suzy (the only female representative of the upper class) doesn’t go to university. In fact she leaves education at 16, but still married within her class.
I thoroughly recommend watching it as it shows how entrenched the class system is in Britain, which hasn’t changed that much in my opinion.
I am an HR professional. There was recently a discussion on an HR forum about application form questions. Did you get free school meals, did your parents go to university, did you live in social housing as a child. Those type of questions all aimed at trying to establish social class to measure social mobility. Many of the contributors were outraged at the intrusive nature of the questions, although having no problem with quesions about gender, ethnicity, religion.
I don’t mind the questions per se, but I find it hard to understand how they actually reflect social class, and many people may simply not know the answers. I believe strongly in establishing the extent of social mobility, but I would be interested in views on how to capture the necessary data properly.