Downwardly mobile?

'More people are moving down, rather than up, the social ladder as the number of middle-class managerial and professional jobs shrinks' — The Guardian

This is how most of this morning's papers covered the release of a report (£) in the British Journal of Sociology analysing changes in social mobility in Britain. The Oxford University study found that the composition of social mobility has altered over time: more of it is now downwards.

The study looked at more than 20,000 Britons born since 1946 and found that the later a person was born, the more likely it was that they would end up in a lower social position than their parents. The report suggests that is because growth in top-level jobs has slowed.

Despite this situation, there has been no decline in absolute mobility—the total proportion of people moving between classes; or relative mobility—the relative chance of someone in a given class moving up or down the social ladder.

But how does Britain compare to other countries? Here is our spotlight looking at how social mobility is defined, how it is has changed over time and how we measure up internationally.