HC Deb 16 July 1987 vol 119 cc562-3W
Mr. Frank Field

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the post-school activity, by social class, in terms of full-time employment, unemployment or YTS, full-time further education and other activities by number and percentage for each social class, in the latest available year; and what were the corresponding figures for 1980.

Mr. Dunn

Information from the youth cohort study, a series of longitudinal surveys of young people aged 16 to 18, jointly sponsored by the Manpower Services Commission, the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Employment, is shown in the table. The percentages are of a sample of 14,000 young people in spring 1986 who had reached school leaving age in maintained schools in England and Wales in the academic year 1984–85.

Social background
All Non-Manual Manual Unclassified (1)
Professional Other Skilled Semi-skilled Unskilled
in YTS 28 15 21 32 33 34 33
out of work 10 3 5 9 12 15 19
other 1 1 1 2 2 3 1
TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
1 The unclassified category includes those reporting a miscellaneous group of occupations, and those who did not state their parental background or who gave an incomplete response.
Corresponding information of the participation of young people analysed by social class is not available for 1980. Estimates of the numbers of young people in 1986 in the categories shown above could be derived from the percentages quoted but the sampling and other errors would give rise to large margins of uncertainty.