Social mobility: The school tie effect

Frances O'Grady compared Britain to a "Downton Abbey-style society" where "social mobility has hit reverse" in her TUC Congress address.

The result of this, she said, was that:

"Whether it's the judiciary, the media, business or public life, wearing the old school tie means you're up to ten times more likely to reach the top".

The TUC told us the claim is based on a report by the Sutton Trust, which looked at the educational backgrounds of people featured in the Times and the Independent's birthday lists. The sample group counts a significant proportion of well known figures from entertainment as well as those achieving in other fields of public life.

It found that 44% of the list of 'top people' with a known educational background attended an independent school, compared to 7% of the school population who attended an independent school. This left the remaining 93% with 56% of 'top jobs'.

From this, the TUC found that the probability of having a top job was over ten times as high for a former independent school pupil than someone who had attended any other type of school.

We don't know if it was their school background alone that gave these people a greater chance of getting these jobs - it could have been their university, or other environmental factors.

See our full take on the complexities of measuring social mobility.