Class Resilience

2018 ◽  
pp. 95-122
Author(s):  
Peter Marks
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Classless Society

Alwyn Turner’s compendious study, A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s (2013), ends after 574 richly observed pages seemingly contradicting its title. Turner writes of John Major and Tony Blair, that ‘both had sought to create a classless society, both had failed, with wealth inequality increasing and social mobility decreasing, and both found themselves ill at ease with the kind of classless culture that emerged instead’ (574). Turner adds that Major and Blair (and before them, Margaret Thatcher) had aimed to refashion Britain as a meritocracy, where ability was more pertinent and consequential than family background and traditional networks of social power.

Limits to Dominance?

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Capital Building ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Very High ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policy Vision

This chapter compares the leadership capital of two long-serving UK prime ministers: Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, treble election winners who held office for a decade. Mapping their capital over time reveals two very different patterns. Thatcher began with low levels of capital, building to a mid-term high and final fragile dominance, though her capital fell between elections. Blair possessed very high levels from the outset that gradually declined in a more conventional pattern. Both benefited from electoral dominance and a divided opposition, Thatcher’s strength lay in her policy vision while Blair’s stemmed from his popularity and communication skills. The LCI reveals that both prime ministers were successful without being popular, sustained in office by the electoral system. Towards the end of their tenures, both leaders’ continued dominance masked fragility, ousted when unrest in their parties and policy unpopularity eroded their capital.

scholarly journals Wealth inequality, family background, and estate taxation

2016 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 130-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariacristina De Nardi ◽  
Fang Yang
Keyword(s):  
Family Background ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Estate Taxation

Inequality of Opportunity in Mexico

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-158
Author(s):  
Roberto Vélez Grajales ◽  
Luis A. Monroy-Gómez-Franco ◽  
Gastón Yalonetzky
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Lower Bound ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Inequality Of Opportunity ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Variable Bias ◽  
Unequal Opportunities ◽  
Available Information

Mexico is a country with high levels of inequality and low intergenerational social-mobility rates for those located at the bottom extremes of the wealth distribution. Although such low rates suggest that at least a share of the observed income inequality may be due to an unequal distribution of opportunities, this conjecture has not been thoroughly tested in the literature. The present article fills this gap estimating the lower bound of the contribution of unequal opportunities to income and wealth inequality in Mexico, with an operationalization of the “ex-ante” approach to the measurement of inequality of opportunity. Relying on a national representative survey designed for the analysis of social mobility, namely, the ESRU Survey on Social Mobility in Mexico (2011), we are able to define a broad set of circumstance groups (“types”), encompassing the wealth of the household of origin. This available information reduces the omitted variable bias of previous estimations and allows for a better account of the role of inequality of opportunity in income inequality. Our results show that the lower bound of the contribution of unequal opportunities to total income inequality and total wealth inequality is around 30 per cent, which is substantially higher than previous estimations for Mexico and ranks among the highest values in Latin America.

scholarly journals “Doing God” in Number 10: British Prime Ministers, Religion, and Political Rhetoric

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Crines ◽  
Kevin Theakston
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Public Persona

AbstractThis article analyses British prime ministers' use of religious language and their own religious beliefs in their political rhetoric. This is used to justify policy, support their ideological positions, present a public persona, and cultivate their personal ethical appeal and credibility as values-driven political leaders. The focus is on the use and the nature of the religious arguments of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. As political leaders, British prime ministers are aware of the need to modify and tailor their language in response to changing audiences and contexts. “Doing God” is a difficult and risky rhetorical strategy for British prime ministers but it increasingly has the potential to yield political benefits.

Educational Choices, Family Background, and Social Mobility

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-146
Author(s):  
Maria da Conceição Rego ◽  
Carlos Vieira ◽  
Isabel Vieira
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Educational Choices ◽  
Access To Higher Education ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Policy Measures

Education is generally considered a valuable tool to improve individual socio-economic status. In European peripheral countries, up to the late 1970s, only a small elite had access to higher education and such privilege guaranteed a comfortable socio-economic position, not only via the job market, but also by allowing the sustainability of pre-existing social links. From then on, democratization of access to higher education should have prompted a decrease in social and economic inequalities within and across countries. However, current data still reflects that, despite gained access to social uplifting tools, individuals from less favored backgrounds appear to not have been able to close the various gaps separating them from the more privileged ones. In this chapter, the authors analyze recent data to characterize higher education attendance in Portugal, highlighting some factors that may still block the socio-economic improvement of the less favored students and suggesting policy measures to overcome them.

How do family background and shadow education affect academic performance and labour market outcomes in South Korea? Reasons for redistributive social investment

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Yun Young Kim ◽  
Young Jun Choi
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Shadow Education ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Labour Market Outcomes ◽  
Education And Employment

This chapter aims to explore the role of education and social investment, with special attention on the effects of shadow education on social mobility in Korea. It analyses how family background and shadow education influence educational attainment and, subsequently, how educational attainment affects incomes, using data from the Korea Education and Employment Panel (KEEP). Since this 'broken social elevator' is not a problem faced only by Korea — most OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have 'sticky ceilings' and 'sticky floors' — the chapter then discusses the direction social investment policies should take to reboot social mobility. It argues that in order to minimise the effects of family background on educational attainment and labour market outcomes, social investment policies should actively play a redistributive role.

Bringing Intergenerational Social Mobility Research into the Twenty-first Century: Why Mothers Matter

2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Beller
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Family Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Conventional Models ◽  
Measurement Strategies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cohort Change

Conventional social mobility research, which measures family social class background relative to only fathers' characteristics, presents an outmoded picture of families—a picture wherein mothers' economic participation is neither common nor important. This article demonstrates that such measurement is theoretically and empirically untenable. Models that incorporate both mothers' and fathers' characteristics into class origin measures fit observed mobility patterns better than do conventional models, and for both men and women. Furthermore, in contrast to the current consensus that conventional measurement strategies do not alter substantive research conclusions, analyses of cohort change in social mobility illustrate the distortions that conventional practice can produce in stratification research findings. By failing to measure the impact of mothers' class, the current practice misses a recent upturn in the importance of family background for class outcomes among men in the United States. The conventional approach suggests no change between cohorts, but updated analyses reveal that inequality of opportunity increased significantly for men born since the mid-1960s compared with those born earlier in the century.

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