Social Progress in the UK: How does Britain compare to its peers?
This term, the Oxford Institute of Social Policy is hosting a seminar series on different perspectives on social policy within Oxford. Each week features a speaker from another department whose work impacts on the study of social policy. In week 4, the seminar series featured a talk by Anthony Heath, emeritus professor of sociology at Nuffield College who specialises in social mobility and directs Nuffield’s Centre for Social Investigation.
To begin with, Professor Heath outlined the relationship between sociology and social policy. He argued that social policy is increasingly captured by economists, a development that he was critical of. In light of the popularity of rather individualistic approaches, Heath proposed that sociology as the study of social relations can enrich social policy by emphasising broader processes and interactions. For example, he noted that government policies regarding social integration are based on the assumption that individuals must change. Professor Heath, however, raised the question of whether the negative attitudes that government aims to tackle may not be caused by the way these people are treated in the first place.
Social progress and the ‘five giants’
His approach to comparing social progress across countries could be described as rather heterodox. Instead of relying on recent work such as the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission or the OECD Better Life Index, Heath refers to the classic Beveridge Report from 1942. Therein, Sir William Beveridge defined ‘five giants’ which government ought to fight on the way to post-war reconstruction: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. Heath translates these into the ‘five modern-day giants’ poverty, health, education, unemployment and overcrowding, which represent the dimensions along which he compares Britain with its peer countries Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Sweden and the USA. Heath referred to Thatcher’s reforms as a turning point in how policies defined and addressed the five giants: ‘want’ was to be addressed by fostering material prosperity; ‘idleness’ through labour market deregulation; ‘squalour’ through the selling of council houses; ‘ignorance’ with increased school competition; and ‘disease’ with limited health system reforms. He likened the Thatcherite reforms to a natural experiment with the question of whether the UK moved away from the continental social policy model.
GDP and unemployment: a mixed record
In terms of GDP, Heath noted that Britain fell behind from the 1950s to the 1970s and caught up under New Labour before taking a hit during the Great Recession after 2007. From the cross-country comparison, there was no evidence that deregulated economies grow faster. Unsurprisingly, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient soared under Thatcher, but Heath added that Sweden, for instance, which is always seen as an equal society, has also implemented policy reforms that led to sizable growth in inequalities. Unemployment had risen significantly pre-Thatcher and increased further under her aegis before declining in the early 2000. Unlike in the US, poorer households in Britain did benefit somewhat from economic growth but young people without qualification in particular found themselves at heightened risk of unemployment. Thus, Thatcher’s reforms might have caused higher growth under New Labour but at the price of increased inequality.
Britain’s two housing crises
Margret Thatcher reversed the earlier post-war trend of continued growth of public housing. Her privatisation agenda was accompanied by an increase in owner-occupied housing with negative effects for poorer households. Professor Heath pointed to the fact that the number of rooms available per person has remained unchanged since the 1960s. In essence, Britain faces two housing crises: the crisis of the poor which is due to overcrowding of rented properties, and the crisis of the middle-class which is an affordability-to-buy crisis. Heath candidly noted that simply building new houses will not solve the problem because the well-off will be the primary beneficiaries of such a policy.
Education and life expectancy: the two bright spots?
Britain’s openness of secondary education has increased with a significantly higher percentage of young people obtaining GSCEs. At the same time, the country’s relative position in math and science remained constant, with countries like Japan and Singapore at the top. Another issue that emerged was the question of whether stagnant scores in math and science may represent a success given that the system has integrated many people that were previously excluded from secondary education.
Heath noted that health was the area where the results are (almost) unambiguously positive. Smoking deaths peaked in 1980 and life expectancy has increased since the 1950s with a tendency of the established democracies to converge. Class differences in child mortality decreased significantly and have almost vanished, although the recent trend suggests a slight divergence. Yet overall, health in Britain has clearly improved.
Conclusion and Goodhart’s Law
Professor Heath summed up his talk by highlighting that Thatcher moved the UK onto a different growth trajectory that led to some growth for the poor. However, the privatisation agenda is responsible for the housing crisis. He highlighted the danger that policy-making may fall prey to Goodhart’s law which stipulates that "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Thus, independent evaluation using sensible measures is important. In general, Heath demanded that government should put more emphasis on non-economic measures of social progress.
About the Author
Fabian is a MSc Candidate in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation and a member of St. Antony’s College. He holds and B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Sciences Po-Paris and has been a visiting student at the University of North Carolina where he focused on public policy, racial inequality, and was a research assistant in the Department of Political Science. Prior to coming to Oxford, Fabian has gained practical experience, working on policy evaluations of European Union Structural Funds at KPMG Germany.