Routes into the British Service Class

Abstract

Goldthorpe’s conception of mobility into the service class relies strongly on biographical explanations. Hence, it is surprising that empirically biographical trajectories are often approached using methodological proxies. Employing a sequence analysis of the work histories of 13,119 members of the National Child Development Study’s 1958 cohort, we examine different routes into the service class. It appears that there are two important roads leading to the service class: one direct and short, the other tortuous and long. Surprisingly, these two routes fork not along the boundaries of the factions of the service class, but along gender lines. Women move later and through feeder occupations to service class positions, whereas men attain these positions immediately subsequent to the educational phase. We explain this by different feeder logics for men and women.