Researchers use family history records to map social mobility
A team of geographers has measured the social mobility of British family groups from 1851 to the present, revealing the divisions between di erent regions.
University College London researchers from the Consumer Data Research Centre traced more than 13,000 family groups from 1851 to 2016 using census records and other sources.
Each family group was given a score summarising the relative neighbourhood deprivation that is experienced by every adult family-group member in Great Britain today, based upon English, Scottish and Welsh Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).
This score provided a measure of the relative degree of hardship experienced by the residents of every neighbourhood and is strongly indicative of socialmobility outcomes, comprising weighted measures of income, employment, health, education, crime, barriers to housing and living environment.
The researchers found that family groups who have 19th-century roots in northern industrial cities in England and east Scotland are more likely to experience deprivation today.
The project’s results are freely available on GBNames ( apps.cdrc.ac.uk/gbnames).
Users can search for a surname and see a map showing its distribution between 1851 and 2016. They can also see the most common first names and geographic areas associated with the surname.