Limited jobs block social mobility opportunities for young people in coastal and rural areas, study shows
Social mobility opportunities for young people in coastal and rural areas are constrained by the lack of jobs available, a new study shows.
Those who stay in the seaside towns where they grew up find their opportunities and choices limited and are more likely to work in routine and manual jobs. The occupations of young people growing up in rural areas inland are more varied.
Moving away breaks this pattern, but those who do seek a life elsewhere tend to be from families with more advantaged backgrounds.
This is further evidence of how opportunities for social mobility are spatially uneven in England. Initiatives to enhance opportunities for social mobility have some distance to travel, particularly in more remote urban coastal areas.
Experts warn employment opportunities in managerial and professional jobs need to come closer to those living in coastal areas to increase local service class employment opportunities.
The study was carried out by Chris Playford, Anna Mountford-Zimdars and Neil Harrison, from the University of Exeter.
Researchers used information from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England dataset from 2015 alongside their own two additional measures of deprivation in urban and rural areas and distance from the coast, as well as information about employment.
They were able to measure geographical movement among young people aged 14 to 25 and link this to employment and life events such as having a child by age 25.
This showed that young people who grow up in urban coastal areas were less likely to find themselves in a higher managerial, administrative or professional occupations at age 25. This was not explained by local factors such as the level of deprivation or individual circumstances such as parental occupation or ethnicity.
Dr Playford said: “Those young people who stay in their local area are constrained by local opportunities and the jobs available.”
“Those who lived in a different region at age 25 tend to be more advantaged, confirming how mobility is used as a form of capital. Moving away eliminates the influence of the type of area in which young people had lived at age 14.”
“Those from urban coastal areas were less likely to move, and those from rural inland areas were more likely. The risk with this status quo is that most young people from coastal urban areas would have to move away to attain occupational advancement. This leads to a ‘brain drain’ from coastal communities that could progressively deepen deprivation and increase social exclusion.”
Those who had grown up in urban-coastal areas were overrepresented in routine and manual jobs. Among those in professional jobs, 1/5th (20%) of young people had moved from the region they grew up in. This contrasts with fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) having moved among those in manual employment.
Those from professional / managerial backgrounds, and those with higher attainment were over-represented among those attaining professional / managerial employment at age 25.
The expected odds of gaining a professional job for those who moved to London were more than 3 times greater than those who remained in the same region.
Young people with parents with manual jobs had lower odds of moving regions compared with those from professional and managerial backgrounds. Having parents educated to degree level or higher increased the odds of moving. The young person’s own educational attainment affects movement, with those with the highest qualifications having increased odds of moving.
END
Those who stay in the seaside towns where they grew up find their opportunities and choices limited and are more likely to work in routine and manual jobs. The occupations of young people growing up in rural areas inland are more varied.
Moving away breaks this pattern, but those who do seek a life elsewhere tend to be from families with more advantaged backgrounds.
This is further evidence of how opportunities for social mobility are spatially uneven in England. Initiatives to enhance opportunities for social mobility have some distance to travel, particularly in more remote urban coastal areas.
Experts warn employment opportunities in managerial and professional jobs need to come closer to those living in coastal areas to increase local service class employment opportunities.
The study was carried out by Chris Playford, Anna Mountford-Zimdars and Neil Harrison, from the University of Exeter.
Researchers used information from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England dataset from 2015 alongside their own two additional measures of deprivation in urban and rural areas and distance from the coast, as well as information about employment.
They were able to measure geographical movement among young people aged 14 to 25 and link this to employment and life events such as having a child by age 25.
This showed that young people who grow up in urban coastal areas were less likely to find themselves in a higher managerial, administrative or professional occupations at age 25. This was not explained by local factors such as the level of deprivation or individual circumstances such as parental occupation or ethnicity.
Dr Playford said: “Those young people who stay in their local area are constrained by local opportunities and the jobs available.”
“Those who lived in a different region at age 25 tend to be more advantaged, confirming how mobility is used as a form of capital. Moving away eliminates the influence of the type of area in which young people had lived at age 14.”
“Those from urban coastal areas were less likely to move, and those from rural inland areas were more likely. The risk with this status quo is that most young people from coastal urban areas would have to move away to attain occupational advancement. This leads to a ‘brain drain’ from coastal communities that could progressively deepen deprivation and increase social exclusion.”
Those who had grown up in urban-coastal areas were overrepresented in routine and manual jobs. Among those in professional jobs, 1/5th (20%) of young people had moved from the region they grew up in. This contrasts with fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) having moved among those in manual employment.
Those from professional / managerial backgrounds, and those with higher attainment were over-represented among those attaining professional / managerial employment at age 25.
The expected odds of gaining a professional job for those who moved to London were more than 3 times greater than those who remained in the same region.
Young people with parents with manual jobs had lower odds of moving regions compared with those from professional and managerial backgrounds. Having parents educated to degree level or higher increased the odds of moving. The young person’s own educational attainment affects movement, with those with the highest qualifications having increased odds of moving.
END