Educational Attainment of Boys

Jeevun Sandher Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

Today I will speak about how boys from more deprived backgrounds have fewer academic and non-academic skills, and how it is harming their ability to get decent jobs in the post-industrial era. This topic was the subject of my second PhD paper, and although I cannot force Members to read it, I can certainly force them all to listen today.

The puzzle that my paper addressed was why non-graduate men are finding it so hard to get jobs in the post-industrial economy. The employment rate for non-graduate men has fallen from about 90% in the 1970s to about 75% in 2020. The manufacturing jobs that they used to do have disappeared, but if employment rates have risen as they have, why can they not get jobs in the service sector? The answer—or at least part of the answer—is in the earliest years of young boys’ lives. By the age of five, the least-skilled boys have lower academic and non-academic skills than the least-skilled girls. That makes it hard for them to attain in school and to develop the perseverance and social skills that they need. The physical skills that were rewarded in the post-industrial economy lost out in the move to the service economy.

How do we fix this and ensure that young boys can get the jobs that they need in our economy? As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) has pointed to, it is about the earliest years and even before birth. It is first about making their parents’ lives affordable. Less time for parents worrying about bills means more quality time with their kids, and more money in the pockets of parents means more psychological and material resources to invest in their children. Secondly, investing in high-quality early years education is probably the highest returning investment that any Government can make. Thirdly, we have to create good jobs for graduates and non-graduates to move into, for both men and women. Mass production manufacturing is not coming back, but we in government can create good non-graduate jobs in construction, healthcare and education. We must invest in our physical and social infrastructure to create the good jobs we need, where we need them.

Every person should be able to live a decent life, but as things stand, too many people cannot. There are many young men whose fathers left school and got decent jobs at the local factory, but those young men cannot do the same today. That disappointment turns to depression, anger and division. Rather than coming together, we are falling apart. Strength is found in each of us doing well—each of us doing so with a common purpose and connection. It is for us in this place, on this side, to build that nation.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.