The class divide: Why social mobility is the missing piece in DEI
Any DEI framework that’s focused on ethnicity but silent on the messy realities of social mobility risks letting down the very people it’s trying to champion, says Eliza Filby
A couple of months ago I was running a workshop for trainees at an international law firm in the UK helping bright Gen Z recruits integrate into their new workplace. The discussion drifted into diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
“To me, I think class is the most important issue here, and I don’t think it is being talked about enough,” said one trainee. Another agreed, explaining how, as someone raised on a council estate and now earning £100k+ at a magic circle law firm, class and social mobility were glaringly absent from workplace discussions. She was a young, Black, working-class woman, fully aware of the intersectionality of modern identities. Yet, in her view, her socio-economic background was what shaped her most and continued to distinguish her at work. She wasn’t dismissing other diversity issues but highlighting the relative silence on class.
This silence shouldn’t surprise us. In an “inheritocratic” economy where social mobility is in decline and the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ shapes London’s professional job market, younger generations are revisiting class – but with less certainty than older generations.
Are we all middle class now?
John Prescott’s 1990s claim, “We are all middle class now,” once felt aspirational. By the early 2000s, more Britons were second-generation graduates raised in homes their parents owned. Yet, this narrative crumbled after the 2008 financial crisis. Class divisions deepened, but the nuances were rarely explored.
We all became class confused in the 2010s. First came the demonisation of the white working class, replaced post-Brexit by “levelling up” rhetoric. All this revealed the stark regional disparities of our economic growth and a siloed society where classes rarely collided. Similarly, for all talk of Corbyn’s ‘for the many’ brand of class-based socialism, it completely failed to capture the working class and instead found favour with frustrated middle-class graduates in metropolitan hubs.
There was also an increasingly complex picture of where class intersected with race and immigration. Just at the time that immigration was reshaping working class culture, Britain’s increasingly multi-ethnic population was becoming more economically diverse. According to the Independent Schools 2020 census, the percentage of ‘minority ethnic’ students in the UK’s private schools was almost the same as the state sector – around one third. This reflected the globalisation of wealth for sure but also challenged our prevailing lazy assumptions about class, race and private education in the UK.
According to the Independent Schools 2020 census, the percentage of ‘minority ethnic’ students in the UK’s private schools was almost the same as the state sector – around one third
At work, class remains the invisible barrier. Research by the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) found working-class professionals earn, on average, £6,287 – 12 per cent – less than their privileged counterparts in identical roles. The SMF is calling on the government to mandate class pay gap reporting – alongside gender, ethnicity and disability. Some organisations already do this, but it is far from all. Under their proposal, large employers would also need to gather and disclose data on their employees’ socioeconomic backgrounds.
What’s crucial is how companies gather meaningful data. In today’s climate – housing struggles, cost-of-living pressures and parental financial support – it’s revealing to know how many employees still live with parents, rent beyond Zone 6 or spend over half their income on housing. Such metrics can be as important as whether someone is a first-generation graduate or their parents’ profession.
In that workshop, the Gen Z trainee embodied a conventional tale of social mobility, but was calling for something more radical: a DEI framework that doesn’t shy away from the messy, often uncomfortable realities of class. One that requires organisations to confront the structural inequalities that shape who enters, thrives, and belongs in professional spaces. And yes, that may also mean justifying CEO salaries and examining conditions for contract cleaners. It means recognising that, while initiatives around gender, race and disability are vital, declining social mobility, regional disparity and parental wealth remain silent factors perpetuating inequality. By mandating class pay gap reporting, class-integration and capturing data that reflects real socioeconomic challenges, companies can finally start bridging the divide. Anything less risks leaving behind the very people they claim to champion.
Eliza Filby’s book Inheritocracy: The Bank of Mum and Dad is out now