Father-to-Son Occupational Mobility in France: Evidence from the 1960s

Abstract

This paper reports some preliminary reanalyses of data on father-to-son occupational status change among French males born in 1918 and after who were economically active in 1959 and 1964. The data are from a large-scale national survey conducted by INSEE in 1964. The data indicate a substantial amount of vertical mobility for the period in question, contrary to previous suggestions that French occupational stratification is relatively "closed" or "blocked" for an industrial society. In most respects, the data show France to be intermediate between the United States and Italy in terms of various rates of status change and the magnitude of determination of status attainment by social origin. In one major respect, however, France seems to diverge from basic parameters of occupational attainment process characteristic of the United States: in France, the level of son's education was somewhat less important than father's occupation as an antecedent to adult occupational status.