Is education now class destiny? Class histories across three British birth cohorts

We investigate claims originating in the work of Daniel Bell that in post-industrial societies educational qualifications obtained prior to labour market entry increasingly determine individuals’ class positions - while opportunities for achieving upward class mobility over the course of working life correspondingly diminish. We apply optimal matching techniques of sequence analysis as a basis for constructing typologies of class histories for men and women in three British birth cohorts whose lives span the period from the mid-twentieth to the early twenty-first century. We find a steady increase across the cohorts in class histories characterised by entry into, and stability within, managerial and professional positions and associated with relatively high levels of qualification. However, there is no decline in class histories characterised by upward mobility; and, while there are clear associations between education and most of the types of class history that we distinguish, the effects of education are systematically and persistently reinforced, or modified, by the independent effects of early life cognitive ability and of class origins. In Britain at least, there is little indication of movement towards an education-based meritocracy, and educational level at labour market entry is today no more class destiny than it was half-a-century ago