Direct effect of social origin on earnings
Published:
12 September 2023
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Data on how young people’s socio-economic background affects their earnings.
Summary main findings
Data for the period from 2019 to 2021 shows that young people aged 25 to 29 years from professional backgrounds earned significantly more than those from other backgrounds but with the same level of education. For example, young people from higher professional backgrounds earned 18% more than those from a lower working class background with the same qualification level.
Young women’s hourly earnings were significantly lower than those of young men with the same level of qualification and from the same socio-economic background.
Young people from most ethnic minority groups earned around the same as White British young people from the same socio-economic background. Earnings were lower for young people from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups.
Disabled young people earned significantly less than those without a disability from the same socio-economic background.
By socio-economic background
Visualisation
Percentage differences in hourly earnings of 25 to 29 year olds, relative to those from lower working-class backgrounds, controlling for highest educational level, sex and age (UK, 2019 to 2021 combined)
Data
| Socio-economic background | Men (£) | Women (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Higher professional | 18.3 | 18.3 |
| Lower professional | 12.5 | 12.5 |
| Intermediate | 3.7 | 3.7 |
| Higher working | 3.9 | 3.9 |
| Lower working | 0.0 | 0.0 |
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For the full download file, see Download the data.
By sex
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of 25 to 29 year olds controlling for educational level and age, by sex and socio-economic background (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
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Data
| Socio-economic background | Men (£) | Women (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Higher professional | 10.90 | 9.87 |
| Lower professional | 10.37 | 9.39 |
| Intermediate | 9.56 | 8.65 |
| Higher working | 9.58 | 8.67 |
| Lower working | 9.22 | 8.34 |
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For the full download file, see Download the data.
By ethnicity
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of 25 to 29 year olds controlling for educational level and age, by ethnicity and socio-economic background (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
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Data
| Ethnicity | Lower working (£) | Higher professional (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Bangladeshi | 7.26 | 8.71 |
| Chinese | 8.49 | 10.20 |
| Indian | 8.69 | 10.44 |
| Pakistani | 8.11 | 9.74 |
| Black African | 8.68 | 10.42 |
| Black Caribbean | 8.75 | 10.50 |
| Mixed | 8.88 | 10.66 |
| White British | 8.70 | 10.44 |
| White other | 8.44 | 10.13 |
| Other | 8.12 | 9.75 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By disability status
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of 25 to 29 year olds controlling for educational level and age, by disability and socio-economic background (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Socio-economic background | Disabled (£) | Not disabled (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Higher professional | 9.08 | 10.28 |
| Lower professional | 8.58 | 9.71 |
| Intermediate | 7.95 | 9.00 |
| Higher working | 7.81 | 8.84 |
| Lower working | 7.55 | 8.56 |
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For the full download file, see Download the data.
About the data
Data source
Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey (LFS)
Time period
2014 to 2021 (3-year rolling averages)
Geographic area
UK
What the data measures
The data shows the effect of young people’s socio-economic background on their earnings. ‘Young people’ in the data are 25 to 29 years old.
Things you need to know
Data is weighted using LFS probability weights. Earnings are adjusted for inflation.
Data is combined for 3 years (for example, 2019 to 2021) to give more accurate estimates.
Percentage differences were estimated from a linear regression model of log hourly earnings by socio-economic background, controlling for educational level and age.
For data by sex, ethnicity and disability status, estimates are shown for people aged 27 years with the lowest levels of education. For data by ethnicity, a simplified measure of socio-economic background is used (professional and non-professional) so that sample sizes are large enough to analyse.
The error bars show 95% confidence intervals. These intervals show where we expect the true value from a population to be 95% of the time. For example, a confidence interval with the range of values from 5 to 10 implies that there is a 95% chance that the true population value is between 5 and 10, and a 5% chance that it is outside of this range. The narrower the confidence interval or range, the more precise the estimate. Read more about confidence intervals
Type of data
Survey data
Full report
Read more in State of the Nation 2023 on GOV.UK.
Download the data
Download full dataset (CSV, 13KB)
This file contains the following variables:
- Indicator code
- Indicator name
- Area type
- Area code
- Area name
- Time period
- Socio-economic background
- Age
- Sex
- Category type
- Category
- Value
- Sample size
- Lower confidence interval
- Upper confidence interval
- Unit
- Value note
Page history
Publication release date:
12 September 2023