Women halting males social ladder climb in Britain

Women are slowing the pace of mens growth on the social ladder in Britain, according to a new study.

London, Jan 12 : Women are slowing the pace of men's growth on the social ladder in Britain, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by Oxford University researchers, revealed that ascendant social moving has come to a halt despite government's assistance to tackle class inequality and offer opportunity for all, and reveals that the reasons for the reversal was greater competition from women, and a slower rate of growth for top jobs.

he authorities' aim to promote 'equality of opportunity' failed to mention that any increase in social mobility was likely to create as many losers as winners, with men losing out to the increasing number of women pursuing careers.

Co-authors John Goldthorpe and Michelle Jackson studied a social class of 8,000 men and 3,000 women born in 1958 and 1970.

The researchers said that the prospects for men were "not as good as they once were".

At the end of the study, three quarters of total analysed ended up in a different social class to their parents 30 years later.

But only 45 per cent of the 1958 group were "upwardly mobile" by 1988, falling to 42 per cent of the 1970 group in 2000.

Some 27 per cent of those born in 1958 were "downwardly mobile," increasing to 30 per cent in the 1970 group.

For men, the numbers who were downwardly mobile increased slightly while for women there was little change.

"For the first time for men we are getting a situation where upward mobility is falling off and downward mobility is increasing," the Telegraph quoted the researchers, as saying.

"The reason, they say, is that there is no longer the same expanding 'room at the top' - the same growth in professional and managerial jobs - to accommodate upward mobility as there was in the second half of the 20th century," they added.

The study is published in the British Journal of Sociology.

ANI