Could it be that one of the most enduring legacies of the Covid-19 pandemic is not to do with infections or health conditions, but with educational scarring and damaged life prospects for poorer children? Billions of children across the world were forced to miss significant chunks of face-to-face schooling to curtail the spread of the virus. But those unprecedented school closures may have unwittingly harmed generations of pupils.
Our review considers Covid’s impact on social mobility. Social mobility tells us how likely we are to climb up (or fall down) the economic or social ladder of life, or indeed just how better-off we are compared with our parents’ generation. Low social mobility levels suggest some degree of inequality of opportunity in society, with adult outcomes too dependent on children’s backgrounds. Education is a key determinant of future mobility levels.
