How Inequality Runs in Families

Unfair Advantage and the Limits of Social Mobility

Gideon Calder, Calder, Gideon

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781447331551
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Marriage & Family Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Most people agree that every child deserves an equal chance to flourish. Most also value family life. Yet the family plays a surprisingly crucial part in maintaining inequality from one generation to the next. The children of disadvantaged parents typically achieve less and die younger. Early in their school careers, even the most able among them fall behind their better-off peers. They are then 8 times less likely to attend a top university. In the UK, as in other rich countries, the 'playing-field' is anything but level.

This book explores how seemingly mundane aspects of family life – from the right to inherit income, to the reading of bedtime stories – raise fundamental questions of social justice. Taking fairness seriously, it argues, means rethinking what equality of opportunity means.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• ONE: Introduction
• TWO: The family and social justice
• THREE: Social mobility and class fate
• FOUR: Unpacking equality of opportunity
• FIVE: Towards real equality of life chances?
• SIX: Seven conclusions
• References