Vertical Class Mobility in England, France, and Sweden

Abstract

This paper presents new findings about English, French, and Swedish mobility tables from the early 1970s that were previously analyzed by Enkson, Gold thorpe & Portocarero and by Hope. The former analysis focused on nonvertical aspects of mobility, while the latter gave priority to vertical mobility. The reanalysis shows that the vertical dimension of mobility is stronger and more autonomous than one would conclude from earlier analyses. At the same time, it is necessary to introduce several parameters for class inheritance in order to fit the data, and these parameters account for more of the association between class origins and destinations than does the vertical aspect of class mobility Educational attainment accounts for part of the vertical aspect of mobility, but income and occupational prestige do not help to explain it. The new models provide direct evidence of a gradient in immobility across the three nations The present findings suggest complementarities between vertical and nonvertical models of class mobility.