Previous work by the authors suggested that during the 1970s and 1980s, a person's early cognitive ability became a less important determinant of his or her eventual educational achievement. Furthermore, over the same time period, family background started to have a greater impact on a person's...

In a meritocratic society an individual's economic success is determined by their ability, not by their parents' socio-economic status. We assess whether meritocracy has increased in both the British education system and labour market. The richness of our longitudinal data enables us to look at...