Moving for opportunities? The occupational destinations of 25-year-olds from rural and coastal areas in England

There is considerable interest in the extent to which young people are occupationally mobile in comparison to their parents and the role of education. While previous studies have considered the geography of the young person’s home origin or their geographical mobility, they have not combined these. In this study, we supplement the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England dataset (n = 4893) from 2015 with two additional derived measures – urbanity/rurality and distance from the coast – to explore geographical dimensions of occupational mobility. Our study identified a sustained negative net effect on the chances of being in service class employment for those growing up in urban coastal areas. Young people who stay in their local area are constrained by local employment opportunities. While moving region eliminates the influence of the type of area young people grow up in, movers tend to be more advantaged and those from urban coastal areas generally have a lower propensity to move. Opportunities for social mobility are thus spatially uneven in England, with a unique uplift provided by London. Initiatives to enhance opportunities for social mobility have some distance to travel, particularly in more remote urban coastal areas.