Getting in2science

We live in a society where your socio-economic background can predict what career path you take. Almost 60% of academics and life science professionals, and over 50% of scientists, come from professional or managerial families. For clinical doctors the figure sits at 73%. For context, only 33% of the entire population comes from these backgrounds. The contrasting figures for those from workingclass backgrounds are less than 15% of academics, less than 10% life science professionals, around 15% of scientists and 6% of doctors. These figures come from a January 2017 report ‘Insights from The Labour Force Survey’ published by The Social Mobility Commission.