Evidence shows that children with parents with a more professional occupation generally do better in their GCSE’s than children with parents working in less skilled jobs. The figures show that 80% of children with higher professional occupation parents achieved level A – C in their GCSE’s compared to lower supervisory occupations only achieving 35% .

Unemployment rate by age

The reason the figures of the unemployment rate for people over 50 isn’t justifiably correct is because the majority of people over 50 are retired compared to the amount working.

All 18+ 5.0 5.3 4.7

18 - 24 11.5 12.6 10.1

24 - 49 3.7 3.8 3.7

50+ 2.9 3.4 2.3

All Men Women

Age has a significant impact on unemployment mainly due to age discrimination by employers but this can be hidden because the stats for older workers who are made redundant are converted into figures for economic inactivity such as retirement and disability. For example a study was created and two waiters aged 27 & 47 submitted CV’s across England. Despite having a CV showing that he was more experienced by 20 more years, he didn’t receive anywhere near as many replies as the 27 year old.

Table 2.12 on page 18 shows that the top 10% earn at least four times as much as the bottom 10%. The highest average wages were in the financial sectors, such as banks