Migration and Social Mobility: South East England as an Escalator Region

"This paper uses data from the OPCS Office of Population Censuses and Surveys Longitudinal Study and the National Health Service Central Register to examine the contention that the South East region of England acts as a kind of 'upward social class escalator' within the British urban and regional system. To establish that this is so it is shown firstly, that the South East attracts to itself through inter-regional migration a more than proportional share of the potentially upwardly mobile young adults; secondly, that it promotes these young people along with its own young adults at rates which are higher than elsewhere in the country; and finally, that a significant proportion of those who achieve these higher levels of status and pay then 'step off' the escalator. They do this by migrating away from the South East at later stages of their working lives and at or near to retirement." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER)