What are social mobility questions and why to include them on an employment form

When it comes to diversity and inclusion, social mobility is often overlooked. Yet, by prioritising it in the workplace, businesses can discover untapped talent and fresh perspectives. This guide explores what social mobility is, how to use social mobility questions during the application process, and how SurveyMonkey tools can help you gather the social mobility data you need.

Social mobility is a person or group’s movement through a social hierarchy system, often described as a ‘ladder’. Social mobility can be:

A person’s social mobility can be influenced by factors like:

Social mobility is important as it helps employees from underrepresented backgrounds to flourish in their chosen industry. According to Social Mobility Employer Index, working class employees make up only 26% of the workforce in creative industries, 24% in engineering and 9% in tech. 

As a business, recruiting candidates from diverse backgrounds can broaden your talent pool. In our guide to diversity and inclusion, we explain how more and more businesses are making a commitment to DEI initiatives, but this isn’t translating to employees’ real-life experiences. 

While inclusion may be difficult to quantify, it’s not impossible. Learn how to become a DEI leader and discover tools to define clear DEI metrics.

Consider measuring social mobility as part of your business’s diversity, inclusion, and equity strategy. HR teams can monitor this in the same way as the gender pay gap, for example, by conducting surveys to gather responses directly from candidates or employees.

You can measure social mobility during the hiring process and continue to monitor it throughout an employee’s lifecycle within your company. 

To gather social mobility data, consider collecting information on, for example, your employee or candidate’s:

Candidates or employees from a less advantaged background may benefit significantly from career progression opportunities, coaching and training. By providing this extra support, they can often tap into a greater range of skills, including problem-solving, creativity and resilience. 

Employers can register with this service confidentially to find out how they meet different social mobility industry benchmarks. According to the UK government, the Index measures:

The UK government and the Social Mobility Commission provides an employer’s toolkit for social mobility in the workplace. They use the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification guideline for defining different socio-economic background stratifications:

They also provide guidelines on how to measure socio-economic background and a set of questions, which we will address in the next section below.

Let’s look at the different types of social mobility questions you can ask in an employment application form. You can use these questions to inform your final hiring decision. 

The social mobility questions recommended by the UK government are multiple choice. This means that candidates can only select one option from the list.

Question 1: What was the occupation of your main household earner when you were aged 14?

The candidate then can choose one option from the following responses:

For the full list of possible occupations, you can refer to the employer’s toolkit. Remember to include the ‘I prefer not to say’ option as some candidates may prefer to keep this information private.

Question 2: What school type did you attend between the ages of 11 and 16, most of the time?

The candidate can then select one option from the following list:

This can be an important social mobility question to ask, since candidates who have attended a fee-paying school may be much more likely to succeed in both being hired for well-paid roles and for developing important professional networks at a young age. Therefore, any candidate who responds with ‘State-run or state-funded school’ is more likely to be from a more disadvantaged socio-economic background.

You can use the UK’s national benchmark to find out how well your business is performing in this regard. 

Want to know more about British class? Read our guide to UK class identity survey.

Question 3: If you finished school after 1980, did you receive free school meals or were eligible for free school meals at any point while at school?

Candidates can then select one of the following answers:

People who were eligible for free school meals are likely to be from an economically disadvantaged background, as this is one of the prerequisites for being eligible. Therefore, any candidates who respond with ‘yes’ are from an economically disadvantaged background.

According to the UK’s national benchmark, the poorest 15% of the population received free school meals. 

You can gather responses from candidates during the application process itself, or later through a survey. If you are hoping to gather this information at a later date to help with learning and development or training opportunities, consider gathering them using an employee survey. 

As we have previously explained, some answers that candidates provide point to them coming from a disadvantaged socio-economic background. Candidates whose parents were in lower-paid occupations when they were growing up, receiving free school meals and those who attended a state school are much more likely to be classed as such.

You can also use SurveyMonkey templates to ask your candidates and employees these recommended social mobility questions. Next, we’ll explore which survey types could be good for you to use here, as well as how to organise the responses you receive.

We strongly recommend the following survey templates:

When organising your question responses, it’s critical to ensure consistency. The three questions we explore involve collecting quantitative rather than qualitative data, as this is simple to collect and organise. 

Consider assigning a score to each possible response to your social mobility questions. A high number could mean that a person is more likely to be from a more disadvantaged socio-economic background, while a lower score means they are less likely. 

By adding these scores together, you can find out which candidates are most likely to be from a disadvantaged background – and how disadvantaged it was.

Use social mobility data to prioritise candidates from a more disadvantaged background and create a fairer recruitment process. You can also use this information to guide the development of training, coaching and learning opportunities to support their development once they join your team. 

Social mobility is an often-overlooked aspect of diversity, equity, and inclusion.. A great starting point is to include social mobility questions during the application process itself. Hiring candidates from a range of different socio-economic backgrounds, genders and ethnicities could broaden your talent pool and help you gain access to fresh perspectives on your customers and products.