Abstract
Social Mobility in Britain has been a key work for theories of mobility and social stratification, but its basic data on the occupation of fathers and sons is open to question. Arguing from evidence (mainly from the Census) about occupational transition and differential fertility, this paper suggests that the 1949 study appears to have an implausible number of middle-class fathers. When this critique is related to the peculiarities of the data already separately reported by others such as Ridge, Hope, and Noble, a strong case can be made for the rejection of the Glass findings. It follows that the conventional sociological wisdom that Britain has a low rate of mobility must be reconsidered, and also that those theories of stratification which have drawn too uncritically on Social Mobility in Britain must now be re-examined.
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