Education, social mobility and outcomes for students receiving free school meals in England

The ONS have released initial findings on earnings outcomes by demographic and regional factors against Free School Meal status.

This is the first in a series examining earning outcomes at age 25, relative to the living wage, for people who had free school meals (FSM) and those who did not.

Being in receipt of FSM is commonly used as a proxy measure for socio-economic disadvantage (including household income deprivation) during childhood. So looking at the relative earnings of young people in relation to having been in receipt or not of FSM is a useful way of exploring social mobility in early adulthood.

Main Findings

• At age 25 years, 23.0% of free school meal (FSM) recipients who attended school in England had recorded earnings above the annualised full-time equivalent of the Living Wage in comparison with 43.5% of those that did not.
• 18.2% of females who received FSM had recorded earnings above the Living Wage compared with 27.8% of males who received FSM; for non-recipients, the proportion was 39.3% and 47.5% respectively.
• The East of England had the greatest proportion of FSM recipients with recorded earnings above the Living Wage (29.5%), the smallest proportion was in the North East, where it was 19.9%.
• The difference in the percentage of FSM recipients and non-recipients earning above the Living Wage was broadly similar in all regions, at around 20 percentage points.
• For both females and males, the difference between FSM recipients and non-recipients earning the living wage was broadly similar in every region.
• In every region, the proportion of males who received FSMs earning above the Living Wage was larger than the proportion of female FSM recipients.
• Earnings distributions by FSM status show that proportionately fewer FSM recipients obtained high earnings than their non-recipient counterparts.

Explore the full report and data sets here.