Intergenerational class mobility over birth cohorts in Argentina and Spain

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on an initial comparative analysis of intergenerational social (class) mobility over birth cohorts in Argentina and Spain. Our objective is to determine the extent to which these two cases of late industrialized countries share similar features of social mobility. Two central questions guide our work: 1) What have been the changes in absolute mobility rates in Argentina and Spain? 2) What has been the comparative evolution over time of the strength of class association? We are guided by two working hypotheses: 1) Given intergenerational changes in labor movements from rural to urban environments, plus the growth of the service class we expect to find a high degree of absolute mobility in both countries; and 2) following international literature, we expect to find a stable net association –controlling for structural changes– of class origins and destinations across birth cohorts in men, and social fluidity in the case of Spanish women.