Building Character

The trending of water so to speak of social mobility has been caused by bad parenting in working-class families, where the adults fail to instil self-discipline in their children, a study has found.

The research by Demos, the left-leaning think tank, finds that the richest in society are nearly three times as likely as the poorest to foster the character traits necessary for a person to get on in life.

The study reveals the gulf has widened because of the absence of “tough love” upbringing in too many working-class households.

This has been made worse by the collapse of marriage among the poorest families, the children of married parents are twice as likely as those from single parents to have the most important characteristics for success.

The Demos report, called Building Character, finds that social mobility, children doing better economically than their parents relative to the rest of society, rose from the second world war to the 1970s and then trend water, although it might have improved a little since 2000.

In families where parents are disengaged, children are three times more likely to develop negative characteristics. In the most extreme cases, the researchers found children could become emotionally insensitive or “callous”.

The report states: “Callous children grow up lacking a sense of empathy and guilt, and learn to see others in a purely instrumental way. There is a level of disengagement in a small minority of parents that would be considered neglectful.”

The researchers found that children in low-income families where their parents adopted a “tough love” parenting style were just as likely to develop positive characteristics as those in richer families.

Is it as easy as that for all our woe’s to place’s this at the core of social mobility and life chances.

What do you think?

Does it matter?