Intergenerational Class Mobility Research Articles

Class Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Nation and Gender

Class Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Nation and Gender

Class Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Nation and Gender

Class Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Nation and Gender

The Analysis of Mobility Regimes

A topological model of a mobility regime is a mapping of the cells in a two-way cross-classification of data into a number of coherent sets of cells or density levels. Such density levels identify cells in the table that are characterized by similar tendencies to association or dissociation between pairs of origin and destination categories. This article demonstrates how to automate categorical model fitting of such data within the SAS statistical package. We discuss two substantive examples: U.S. male intergenerational occupational mobility: and a new account of intergenerational class mobility in Australia, that draws on contemporary neo-Marxist theorizing about class structures in capitalist societies.

Intergenerational Class Mobility in Postwar Japan

This article uses mobility data from Japan to (1) test the Feather-man -Jones-Hauser hypothesis that industrial societies share similar rats of intergenerational mobility and to (2) shed light on the debate about Japanese "exceptionalism." Japanese relative mibility rates show no systematically greater deviation from the postulated common pattern than do those of nine European nations. Regarding absolute mobility rates, however,an argument can be made for the distinctiveness of mobility patterns and processes of class formation and reproduction in Japan.

Transition to Socialism and Intergenerational Class Mobility

Elimination of economic and social disadvantages and discrimination against women was one of the basic aims of socialism. A search for a plausible explanation of the differences in intergenerational class mobility of females and males unfortunately cannot be drawn from the results of other Czechoslovak analyses. Possible changes of the mobility regime in Czechoslovakia, unlike in other socialist countries, have been affected much more by a clear-cut political change, aiming at establishing a new socialist class structure. The entry period of socialist transition in Czechoslovakia thus signified, a robust increase in chances for ascent from nonskilled to skilled workers, also marking the beginning of the prevalence of mobility from the non-manual to the manual sphere over reverse mobility. The data from the 1984 Social Structure Survey in Czechoslovakia were used for the analysis. The development of class structure in Czechoslovakia has been marked by deepening stagnation since the 1960s.

Trends in Intergenerational Class Mobility in England and Wales, 1972-1983

Results on trends in intergenerational class mobility in England and Wales obtained from the Nuffield inquiry of 1972 are updated to 1983 on the basis of material derived from the British General Election Study of that year. Overall, a marked continuity in trends in absolute mobility rates and in associated patterns of social fluidity and structural change is revelaed. The most important new development in the context of far more adverse economic conditions is for the mobility chances of men of working-class origins to polarise - a continuing improvement in opportunities for upward mobility into service-class positions going together with increasing risks of downward mobility via unemployment. The results reported are shown to be ones that do not readily accord with current theories, whether Marxist or liberal, of the development of the class structures of modern western societies.

Social Mobility in France and Sweden: Women, Marriage and Work

This paper is another pragmatic attempt to include women in the comparative study of intergenerational class mobility in France and Sweden, two societies that differ in their political history and in the prevalence of women's activity outside the home. In the main, it addresses two questions: How do the mobility patterns of women via marriage compare with those of men via occupational career? How do the mobility patterns of women via marriage compare with those of women via occupational career? These questions are treated in terms of actually observed life chances as well as in relative terms, which shows the impact of the division of labour by sex on differences in life chances by alternative channels of mobility. An attempt is also made to assess the relative importance of interactions between women's social origin, own occupation, and class position by marriage The association between the latter two proves to be the strongest by far. Rather unexpectedly, social origin does not appear to affect the association between husband's class and wife's occupational category either in France or in Sweden.

Intergenerational Class Mobility and the Convergence Thesis: England, France and Sweden

Intergenerational Class Mobility and the Convergence Thesis: England, France and Sweden

Social Fluidity in Industrial Nations: England, France and Sweden

In a paper recently published, we have compared rates of intergenerational class mobility among the adult male populations of England, France and Sweden.l The results we have reported stand in some opposition to the well-known thesis of Lipset and Zetterberg which claims that the mobility patterns of the industrial societies of the western world are 'much the same'.2 While our results could lend support to the idea of there being a 'family resemblance' among the class mobility patterns of England, France and Sweden, each of these countries was at the same time found to have a fairly distinctive 'rnobility profile' when intergenerational movements in class position were examined on the basis of a ninefold class schema. Inflow rates, or patterns of class recruitment, showed especially marked crossnational variation. A major factor creating such variation was evidently that of historically-determined differences in the class structures of the three societies, most notably ones associated with the relative sizes of their agricultural sectors and with differing rates of contraction of employment in agriculture in the course of economic development. Lipset and Zetterberg, it may be recalled, excluded from consideration all mobility either from or to agricultural classes and thus, in our view, biassed their data unduly in favour of the thesis that they proposed. The present paper follows on directly from our earlier publication. Basically, the question it treats is the following: can the variation that we have observed in class mobility rates for England, France and Sweden be in fact attributed entirely to differences in the evolution of the class structures of these societies or in other factors affecting the 'demand' and 'supply' conditions attending mobility; or is it rather the case that there are, in addition to such structural sources of variation, differences also among the three societies in the pattern of what we would term their 'social fluidity' or, in other words, in mobility considered independently of structural influences? To use

Models of Intergenerational Class Mobility: Findings from the National Survey of Health and Development

Mobility data from the National Survey of Health and Development, deriving from the occupations in 1977 of the male survey members, are presented. Multiplicative models of the intergenerational mobility table, developed by Goodman, are described and fitted to the National Survey data. The models include parameters which measure the extent of upward and downward mobility, crossings between adjacent classes, and distance moved. The results suggest that the concept of barriers between adjacent classes may be less appropriate than distance moved. The best fitting model provides a simple description of mobility where the main impediment to movement is the distance involved. When disaggregated, the model shows higher levels of upward than downward mobility and a barrier to medium and long range downward movement. The crossings parameter model is characterized by barriers at either end of the class structure.

Intergenerational Class Mobility in Three Western European Societies: England, France and Sweden

The starting point of almost all recent discussions of comparative (i.e. cross-national) social mobility rates has been the thesis advanced by Lipset and Zetterberg in 1959 that 'the overall pattern of social mobility appears to be much the same in the industrial societies of various Western countries'. ' Although Lipset and Zetterberg recognized that the data on which this thesis rested were often of a doubtful quality, they none the less maintained that 'the reservations and cautions which are in order do not invalidate this finding, which a number of other researchers in this area, such as Pitirim Sorokin, Robert Havighurst, Natalie Rogoff, David Glass, and Colin Clark, also agree is warranted....'2 Subsequent commentators have in fact been a good deal less sanguine about the possibility of deriving reliable comparative conclusions from the results of the national mobility inquiries that were available to Lipset and Zetterberg.3 But of perhaps still greater import are the several criticisms that have been levelled against their thesis on primarily conceptual grounds. Four such criticisms may be noted. (i) Lipset and Zetterberg operate for the most part (out of necessity) with the simple two-class model, based on the distinction between manual and non-manual occupational groupings; but the crossnational similarities that they discern in rates of (intergenerational) mobility between these two groupings may well disappear when a less crude basis for comparison is adopted.4 (ii) On the grounds that they are concerned with mobility within industrial society, Lipset and Zetterberg restrict their attention to mobility occurring within the non-agricultural sectors of the countries they cover; but this limitation is artificial and unduly favourable to their thesis since Western countries differ considerably in the size of their agricultural sectors, and in the rates at which these are contracting. Important cross-national differences may thus be expected in rates of mobility between agricultural and non-agricultural occupations.5 (iii) Lipset and Zetterberg regard their thesis as relating to 'vertical'