The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that parental support can be the most important factor in determining the qualifications and job someone ends up with. Some studies show British children are more likely than those in other developed countries to end up in the same socio-economic class as their parents. A London School of Economics report in 2007 concluded that the UK’s social mobility has not improved in 30 years.
"Loved the one about parenting, Nick. Haha, you prick!"
Condemning Britain’s falling level of social mobility, Mr Clegg tacitly told many parents they should do more to back their children’s education, by helping with homework and providing other support. Mothers and fathers have a “responsibility” to support and encourage their children’s education even if they are busy and tired, he said. Promising new Government work to increase social mobility, Mr Clegg said that Britain is effectively “socially segregated”. The children of middle-class parents dominate the best-paid professions while many of the children of the poor are “trapped” in poverty for life, he said.
One of the factors is “the different degree to which different parents invest in and engage with their own children’s development and progress.” Mr Clegg cited a 1999 study in the Oxford Economics Papers which suggested that parental interest in a child’s education is four times more important than socio-economic background to that child’s final educational achievements. Mr Clegg admitted it was “perilous” for politicians to intervene in family life, but insisted that “we must not remain silent” on such an important issue.
“Parents hold the fortunes of the children they bring into this world in their hands. All parents have a responsibility to nurture the potential in their children,” he said. He added: “I know, like any mother or father, how difficult it can be to find the time and the energy to help, for example, with your children’s homework at the end of a busy day. But the evidence is unambiguous: if we give them that kind of attention and support when they are young, they will feel the benefits for the rest of their lives.”
Mr Clegg, the son of a wealthy banker, attended Westminster, one of the country’s most expensive public schools. He admitted that his own “quite affluent” background had “played a part” in his career, but said he could not say if he would have been equally successful if he had not been wealthy.
