Читать книгу What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Social Mobility? - Lee Elliot Major - Страница 16

The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were the decades of rising inequality (Brewer, 2019). In the 1980s inequality increased throughout the earnings distribution. The result was the fanning out of earnings, shown for selected percentiles of weekly wages through the decade. The 1990s and 2000s saw the highest earners pulling away.

Figure 2.2 highlights the trends in absolute mobility over 40 years. Real wages grew for all three of the pictured percentiles until a peak level reached around the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007–8. Top-end earners at the 90th percentile experienced real wage growth of 103 per cent at its peak, with median earners growing 63 per cent, and bottom-end earners at the 10th percentile by 25 per cent. Even though the highest earners fared a lot better than the others, and the middle in turn did better than the bottom, all three groups experienced real wage growth over these years.

Figure 2.2 Wage trends, 1980–2019

Note: Hourly wages deflated by consumer price index (CPI), indexed to 0 in 1980.

Source: New Earnings Survey/Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings

This meant that a high proportion of people were earning more than their parents were at the same age, signalling improved absolute intergenerational mobility. After the peak, real wages dropped for all the percentiles. They fell more for the top earners, helping to narrow inequality. However, the figures demonstrate that inequality in wages was substantively higher in 2019 than it was in 1980. Wages increased by 93 per cent for those at the 90th percentile, 58 per cent for those at the 50th percentile, and 30 per cent for those at the 10th percentile. These real wage falls, which were not experienced by parents at the same age some three or four decades earlier, mean that absolute intergenerational mobility has been falling.