The Government’s social mobility strategy, which will conclude that movement between the classes had “stagnated” over the past 40 years, will be published next week and Mr Willetts blamed the entry of women into the workplace and universities for the lack of progress for men.
“Feminism trumped egalitarianism,” he said, adding that women who would otherwise have been housewives had taken university places and well-paid jobs that could have gone to ambitious working-class men.
The minister set out his views during a briefing with journalists on the social mobility strategy, which will include a plan to test the population at seven ages, from birth until the age of 30, to measure whether life chances were improving for children from different backgrounds.
Figures to be published are expected to paint a grim picture of the prospects for advancement for children from the poorest backgrounds dating back to the 1960s. Asked what was to blame for the lack of social mobility, Mr Willetts said: “The feminist revolution in its first round effects was probably the key factor. Feminism trumped egalitarianism. It is not that I am against feminism, it’s just that is probably the single biggest factor.”
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