Patterns Of Social Mobility Research Articles

Getting up - Staying Up? - Exploring Trajectories in Household Incomes between 1992 and 2006

The objectives of this article are primarily methodological. It demonstrates how the use of ‘combined truth tables’ derived by deploying the tools of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) enables us to explore the multiple trajectories of cases through time. This approach is presented as an alternative to the use of log-linear methods which develop the model, which ‘fits’ the data. Despite urges to caution, such models are frequently understood as descriptions of causation. Log-linear models cannot deal with multiple causation and have serious problems in handling complex causation. The approach suggested here allows exploration of both multiple and complex causation without moving into the difficult terrain of causal assertion. The approach is demonstrated through an exploration, using British Household Panel data, of patterns of mobility for individuals in relation to household incomes across time comparing their household income location in 1992 with their household income location in 2006 taking into account gender, age, education, social class, being in a couple, and the employment status of partner. A subsidiary argument of the piece is that it is household income which should provide a primary focus for attention to patterns of social mobility over time.

Telling a modest story: accounts of men's upward mobility from the National Child Development Study

While the pattern of social mobility in postwar Britain has been extensively studied, revealing considerable upward mobility, much less is known about the subjective dimension to mobility. In this article, we employ a new sample of in-depth interviews with 50-year old men from the National Child Development Study to examine in detail the link between objective mobility patterns and the way the upwardly mobile narrate their life trajectories. In contrast to the mobility ideology suggested by the Oxford mobility survey of the early 1970s, in which the upwardly mobile recognized and internalized their success as a project of the self, we report how members of this later generation of men with highly successful careers prefer instead to articulate 'modest' life stories. By treating the career as a narrative device, we are able to show how the disavowal of the dominant, linear hierarchical career model by these men allows them to tell particular and distinctive stories which establish their individuality and personhood, while, paradoxically, recognizing the cultural power of the dominant model. In particular, we highlight the use of 'linear contingent' narratives by these men, in which specific events, especially those connected with occupational and geographical transitions, are deployed as contingent thresholds to mark out key shifts and passages in their lives. We then compare their accounts with those of immobile and downwardly men, who instead deploy 'ghostly' stories, preoccupied by the past, or defensive accounts, displaying unease with their failure to live up to the expectations of the linear career model. Having shown that men's accounts of mobility are suffused with an awareness of their need to establish their own individuality through repudiating the social trope of the instrumental careerist, we conclude that the links between career identities and objective mobility patterns are not straightforward and need careful unravelling.

Beyond Conversion and Sanskritisation: Articulating an Alternative Dalit Agenda in East Punjab

AbstractGiven different socio-economic structures, and acute landlessness among the Dalits of East Punjab, the agendas of conversion to neo-Buddhism and sanskritisation, the two most popular Dalit social mobility models in India, have failed to strike a cord among the Dalits in this border state of northwest India. But that does not imply that Dalits of Punjab have failed in improving their social status. On the contrary, they have been very vocal in their assertions for social justice and dignity, and pressing for a due share in the local structures of power; a clear indication of a significant surge of Dalit social mobility in Punjab. The question that still remains largely unexplored, however, relates to the patterns of Dalit social mobility in Punjab that have emerged independently of the agendas of conversion to neo-Buddhism and sanskritisation. The study aims to map out the contours of an emerging alternative Dalit agenda in Punjab, which is conspicuous by its absence in existing Dalit studies, and examines its catalytic role in enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of increasingly visible Dalit social mobility in the state. The paper concludes by visualising the possibility of an articulation and assertion of a similar alternative Dalit agenda through highly contentious democratic politics in other parts of India, where the archetypical agendas of conversion and sanskritisation have either failed to deliver social justice and dignity or could not simply appeal to the local Dalit population.

Gender Role Differentiation and Social Mobility of Women in Nigeria

AbstractThe paper examines gender role differentiation and its effect on the trend and pattern of social mobility of women in Nigeria. Although biological categorisation of humans is vital, in reality, it is the culturally constructed gender differentiation into masculinity and femininity that is most fundamental in defining what role males and females play in society. The roles males play are highly valued and rewarded than that of females. This division of roles along gender lines place women in underprivileged position in terms of power, prestige and wealth. The paper argues that gender role differentiation negatively restricts the life chances of women thus, affecting their mobility pattern. However, changing institutional arrangements tend to alter social mobility in favour of women in contemporary Nigerian society.

Conceptualizing the Survival Sector in Madagascar

Abstract: This article calls for the recognition of a subsector of the informal economy, which is conceptualized as the “survival sector”. Based on empirical evidence from Antananarivo, Madagascar it is suggested that beggars, street children and other marginalized people constitute a separate, non-productive subsector of the economy, which is also distinguishable from formal and informal economies because of other aspects, such as the character of its social and economic networks, survival strategies, patterns of social and physical mobility, and the social and public spaces occupied. Given the vast number of marginalized people in the world, it seems useful to consider a survival sector of its own that is, despite interlinkages, fundamentally different from other components of the informal economy.

Educational Expansion and Social Mobility: The Scottish Case

For over a century, the goal of reducing class inequalities in educational attainment has been based at least in part on the belief that this would help to equalise life chances. Drawing upon the main findings of three ESRC-funded projects, this paper reviews the empirical evidence on trends in social class inequalities in educational attainment and the role of education in promoting social mobility in Scotland. The findings show that in the second half of the twentieth century, despite the increase in overall levels of attainment, class differences in educational attainment persisted. Educational policies in Scotland supported educational expansion which allowed larger numbers of working-class children to climb the social class ladder than in the past. However, these did not translate into any break with the patterns of social inequalities in the chances of entering the top-level occupations. The conclusions highlight that educational policies on their own are not powerful enough to change patterns of social mobility which are mainly driven by labour market and social class structures.

Myth of the Social Volcano: Perception of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China (review)

Reviewed by: Myth of the Social Volcano: Perception of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China Alvin Y. So (bio) Martin King Whyte. Myth of the Social Volcano: Perception of Inequality and Distributive Injustice in Contemporary China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. xiv, 264 pp. Hardcover $80.00, ISBN 978-0-8047-6941-9. Paperback $27.95, ISBN 978-0-8047-6942-6. China’s post-1978 economic reforms have been remarkably successful, producing close to 10 percent economic growth rates for three decades, rising income levels, massive inflows of foreign investment, and extraordinary success in exporting Chinese product overseas. However, there is at least one dark side to this successful story. During the reform period, China has gone from a society that was relatively equal to being a society that is highly unequal. In post-socialist China, the wealth and privilege that the socialist revolution set out to destroy have returned with a vengeance — for example, millionaire business tycoons, the exploitation of workers by foreign capitalists, and gated and guarded private mansion compounds. The downside of capitalism that socialism had eliminated has also returned with a vengeance — unemployment, company bankruptcy, loss of health insurance, and confiscation of housing and farmland in shady deals with property developers. In Myth of the Social Volcano, Martin K. Whyte examines how ordinary Chinese viewed the growing inequalities that had been unleashed by China’s market reform after 1978. Do most ordinary Chinese accept the new market-based and highly competitive society China has become and feel that it offers improved opportunity for them to get ahead and to make better lives for their children? Or do they feel threatened by these changes and feel that most of the benefits of China’s prosperity are being monopolized by the well connected and corrupt, while ordinary workers and farmers are being left behind? The so-called conventional view asserts that ordinary Chinese citizens believe that current inequalities are unjust; they are increasingly angry about rising inequalities; and their anger might eventually erupt in a social volcano of widespread protests against the distributive injustice unleashed by market reforms and hectic economic growth, thus putting China’s social and political stability at risk. The Chinese who are most angry about inequality patterns and trends are the losers and disadvantaged groups in the wake of Chinese reforms (such as the farmers), while those who have prospered as a result of the reforms tend to accept current inequalities rather than to feel anger. Perhaps stimulated by apparent sharp increases in local protest incidents in recent years, the social volcano argument has gained wide currency both in China and in the West. However, Whyte questions whether this social volcano argument about China’s inequality patterns and trends is correct. Thus, Whyte carried out the first systematic national survey of the attitudes of Chinese citizens on inequality and distributive injustice issues to examine the social volcano argument critically. [End Page 247] Chapter 1 presents an overview of China’s recent history, focusing on the nature of equality and social mobility patterns during the socialist era in order to provide a historical context for the post-1978 transformation of China from a socialist to a market society. This chapter argues that socialist China before 1978 was far from an egalitarian social order upon which Chinese citizens might look back with nostalgia. Instead, the socialist period was a rigid and unfairly stratified social order from which today’s market society might be seen as a welcome escape. Chapter 2 describes the nature of the 2004 national survey, the sampling methods, and the questionnaire that Whyte employed. The national surveys were carried out in the fall and early winter of 2004. The response rate was 75.2 percent. The survey used spatial probability sampling and eventually ended up with 1,785 residents from urban areas and 1,482 from rural areas. The interviewers were locally hired individuals who were familiar with local dialects. Whyte is confident about the quality of his national survey because it followed accepted procedures, such as voluntary participation and assured confidentiality, designed to minimize biases that might distort responses of survey respondents. Chapter 3 presents the feelings of Chinese...

Social Mobility and Redistributive Taxation

We investigate redistributive taxation in a political economy experiment and determine how different patterns of social mobility affect the choices of redistributional taxes. In the absence of social mobility, voters choose tax rates that are very well in line with the prediction derived in the standard framework by Meltzer and Richard (1981). However, past or future changes in the income hierarchy affect the choice of the tax rate in the current period. The same is true for social mobility within the period to which the tax rate choice applies and for the case where the choice of the tax rate takes place behind the veil of ignorance. Due to our design of the experiment, these strong effects of own social mobility cannot be attributed to social or other-regarding preferences.

Social Mobility and Redistributive Taxation

We investigate redistributive taxation in a political economy experiment and determine how different patterns of social mobility affect the choices of redistributional taxes. In the absence of social mobility, voters choose tax rates that are very well in line with the prediction derived in the standard framework by Meltzer and Richard (1981). However, past or future changes in the income hierarchy affect the choice of the tax rate in the current period. The same is true for social mobility within the period to which the tax rate choice applies and for the case where the choice of the tax rate takes place behind the veil of ignorance. Due to our design of the experiment, these strong effects of own social mobility cannot be attributed to social or other-regarding preferences.

Intergenerational Social Mobility in OECD Countries

This paper assesses recent patterns of intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries and examines the role that public policies can play. It shows that the relationship between parental or socio-economic background and offspring educational and wage outcomes is positive and significant in practically all countries for which evidence is available. Intergenerational social mobility is measured by several different indicators, since no single indicator provides a complete picture. However, one pattern that emerges is of a group of countries, southern European countries and Luxembourg, which appears to rank as relatively immobile on most indicators, while another group, the Nordic countries, is found to be more mobile. Furthermore, public policies such as education and early childcare play a role in explaining observed differences in intergenerational social mobility across countries.

Desigualdade de oportunidades no Brasil: considerações sobre classe, educação e raça

Este trabalho analisa os determinantes da mobilidade social de homens e mulheres no Brasil em 1982 e 1996, com base em regressoes de realizacao de status e em modelos logisticos multinomiais condicionais. Em particular, investigamos os efeitos da origem social, da raca e da educacao na desigualdade de oportunidades. A principal conclusao e de que a educacao e a variavel mais importante, mas cujos retornos vem declinando rapidamente, o que explica quase todo o aumento da fluidez social no periodo. Raca e origem social sao elementos que potencialmente determinam o sucesso educacional dos individuos, mas que desempenham diretamente um papel apenas secundario no mercado de trabalho. Nao foram detectadas interacoes relevantes, o que implica que os retornos para educacao sao semelhantes por cor ou raca. O padrao de mobilidade social das mulheres e basicamente o mesmo dos homens.

Standard measures of inter-generational social mobility distort actual patterns of mobility and health behaviour: evidence for a better methodology

Objective: Researchers commonly ignore initial social level (e.g. low, middle, and high) when classifying inter-generational social mobility as upward, stable, or downward. This article examines the consequences of this practice in the study of social mobility's relationship to tobacco and alcohol use. Design: Mobility was tracked using Norway's 1970 (mother's education) and 1998 (offspring's education) national education registry's, linked to a 1998 national survey providing data on offspring's tobacco and alcohol use. Setting: Community. Participants: One thousand and forty-five randomly selected Norwegians aged 24–31 years, and their mothers. Main outcome measures: Tobacco and alcohol use. Results: Within upward-stable- and downward-mobile groups, sub-groups of offspring defined by the education level of their mothers had significantly different levels of tobacco and alcohol use. Stable social mobility at the intermediary level was associated with alcohol consumption of less than one to three times per month, and stable social mobility at the high level was associated with alcohol intake of two to three times a week. Upward mobility from low to high and middle to high levels was associated with consumption levels once a week, but upward mobility from low to middle level was associated with a consumption level of less than once a month. The associations between social mobility and tobacco use were similarly complex. Conclusions: A literature characterised by mixed findings suffers from classification imprecision, following from the erroneous assumption that all forms of upward, stable, and downward social mobility are equivalent with respect to health behaviour. If future research is in accord with the findings of this study, then aggregation of diverse social mobility patterns into a few gross categories is not commendable.

Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282–1494*

This article statistically analyzes quantitative data from numerous sources in order to assess changes in marriage patterns, family structure, and rates of social mobility during the period from 1282 to 1494. During this period, three systems of social stratification coexisted -- wealth, political office, and age of family -- but these contending status systems were not consistent in their rankings of families. Each status system was conservative in the sense that elite families at the top of that hierarchy married each other in order to stabilize their position. But because of inconsistency in rankings, contradiction within the elite opened up the Florentine marriage system to widespread upward social mobility by new men. In their own families, successful new men aggressively imitated their economically and politically declining status superiors. Sharp class divisions thereby blurred into continuous and negotiable status gradients. These open-elite patterns of social mobility, present throughout the early Florentine Renaissance, were most extreme during the Albizzi regime, immediately following the Ciompi Revolt.

Social Mobility and Psychiatric Disabilities: An Assessment of the Social Causation and Social Selection Hypotheses

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families and groups from one social position to another. Researchers indicate that people with psychiatric disabilities tend to come from lower socioeconomic status groups, and that the causal relationship between lower socioeconomic status and mental illness occurs through social mobility process. The purpose of this study was to examine the occupational social mobility process of a sample of self-identified psychiatrically disabled individuals who have been active members of the labor force for most of their adult lives. A total of 200 participants were recruited from the customers of a One-Stop Career Center in Gloucester County, New Jersey. The social mobility pattern of persons with psychiatric disabilities was compared to that of persons without psychiatric disabilities (n = 100 for each group). That is, the social selection and the social causation hypotheses were applied to the social mobility patterns of people with psychiatric disabilities. It was revealed that the social class distribution for fathers of people with psychiatric disabilities was not different from that of people without psychiatric disabilities and also there was no significant social mobility difference between the two groups. These findings do not support the social causation and the social selection hypotheses. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that occupational capabilities and skills of people with psychiatric disabilities have been stabilized and are similar to those of people without psychiatric disabilities. Furthermore, these results may dispute several biases and prejudices with regard to social mobility process of persons with psychiatric disabilities.

Intergenerational class mobility in Britain: A comparative look across three generations in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 sample is in a uniquely good position to provide relevant data on social class mobility patterns over most of the last century. These participants, with known ultimate social class attainment, took a validated mental test in the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947 and were followed up at approximately age 70. Then, besides their own age 11 mental ability data and educational and occupational attainment, they reported educational and occupational data on their parents and offspring. We constructed structural equation models of participant and offspring social class attainment and odds of social class movement, and compared results with those from the similarly recruited and assessed Lothian Birth Cohort 1921. In the 1936 cohort, relative transmission of social class from one generation to the next decreased, while relative transmission of educational attainment increased. In addition, effects of childhood IQ and educational attainment on social class decreased, apparently due to relative decrease in overall upward mobility and absolute increase in overall education level.

Rites of Passage in Ọgbalu's Novel, Obiefuna: An Archetypal Analysis

Creative works in Igbo do embody elements drawn from the traditional life of the people. This paper, which discusses the „rite of passage‟ in Ogbalu‟s novel, Obiefuna, looks at it as a cultural phenomenon, which elicits a pattern of transformation and social mobility in traditional Igboman‟s life as exemplified in the work of art. The paper x-rays the various transitory processes in Igboman‟s life as illustrated in the novel, and concludes that courage and endurance, which some of the transitory stages require, are essential in human life as one faces the challenges of life. The paper also notes that the incorporation of this traditional material in the modern work of art in the novelist‟s way of preserving in the Igbo culture and myth.

Elementos para el estudio de la estratificación social en las sociedades avanzadas: estrategias operativas

El estudio empírico de la posición social de los individuos en las sociedades avanzadas supone un reto investigador, por cuanto las rápidas transformaciones en la estructura y las nuevas pautas de movilidad social hacen aconsejable incorporar variables ausentes en el estudio tradicional de la estructural social. El artículo propone cuatro estrategias operativas para el análisis de la estratificación social, recogiendo enfoques de diverso origen y tradición, y buscando sintetizar los esfuerzos desarrollados hasta el momento.

The Mobilization of Opposition to Economic Liberalization

Opposition to economic liberalization has intensified since the late 1990s, with Latin America often standing at the forefront of new social and political movements that challenge market globalization. The revival of social protest and populist or leftist political alternatives has shattered the technocratic consensus around neoliberal policies in the region. By demanding an expanded set of social citizenship rights, these movements are also contesting the terms under which popular sectors were reincorporated politically under the new democratic regimes of the 1980s. This “second” historical process of mass political incorporation differs in fundamental ways from that associated with the process of labor incorporation in the first half of the twentieth century. It is marked by a more pluralistic set of social subjects, a more decentralized organizational structure, and more fluid patterns of institutional development. Existing scholarship often fails to explain variation in the patterns of social and political mobilization, due to both methodological and theoretical limitations—in particular, a tendency to focus on outcomes with little variation on the dependent variable, and a failure to engage theoretically with the literature on social fragmentation and demobilization. There is thus a need to problematize the process of mobilization by conducting more rigorous comparative research on a broader range of social responses to market liberalization.

Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans

Thanks to a tremendous amount of tedious research, Nicole von Germeten has shed light on a number of complex factors related to the social movement of Afro-Mexicans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Using records of confraternities in Mexico City, Valladolid, and Parral along with wills and baptismal data from the same cities, she has traced the colonial identity of Africans and their Afro-Mexican descendants through some three centuries, from slavery to freedom and from black to mulatto.According to von Germeten, from the sixteenth century onward, religious brotherhoods played a central role in the lives of many African slaves and black Mexicans who sought a means by which they could shore up their social and cultural links to the Hispanic world. In the words of the author, “Confraternities played a strong role in this long-term upward mobility by providing an acceptable way for members to take part in public rituals and celebration of local life in New Spain” (p. xi). They not only existed to demonstrate the economic gains of former slaves, but also to serve as hospitals and burial societies.From the outset, royal officials encouraged slaves to join black brotherhoods because they believed that these confraternities would provide a more attractive model than rebellion against Hispanic culture. Their assumption proved correct for most Afro-Mexicans. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, a significant number of black Mexicans achieved increasing degrees of prosperity. For that reason, by the eighteenth century Afro-Mexicans no longer considered slavery central to their self-identification. Joining confraternities gave them one means by which they could demonstrate that they were no longer the poorest members of society. Indeed, confraternities offered an opportunity to manifest their prosperity publicly. As they sought financial independence and prominence, they organized confraternities that offered opportunities for social advancement.Von Germeten also treats in depth the role of women in organizing confraternities. During the seventeenth century, African women provided charity to other slaves in the form of health care and burial. According to von Germeten’s reading of baptism records, many of these women were single mothers who drew in alms for the confraternities. During the seventeenth century, women held leadership roles in many of the confraternities, but by the eighteenth century, men eclipsed women as leaders. As von Germeten states, “The decline in women’s leadership positions in confraternities is an important part of a trend in which men of African descent adopted patriarchal values whenever possible” (p. 70).Students of slavery and race relations in Latin America will want to read this book. As Stephen Angell and Anthony Pinn note in their foreword to the book, “Giving primary attention to African involvement in confraternal organizations, Nicole von Germeten provides significant insights into the complexities of African identity in colonial Mexico” (p. viiii). She has shown that racial patterns differed from region to region in Mexico by using extensive examples from three diverse cities. For instance, in Mexico City and Vallalodid Afro-Mexicans moved from slavery into urban employment and better social positions, whereas Parral offered few opportunities for social advance. In all three cities confraternities played an important role in the assimilation of Afro-Mexicans into the Hispanic culture.The importance of von Germeten’s book stems in large part from her proof that Mexico has an African heritage and that Afro-Mexicans, in turn, adopted Hispanic culture and values. Like Ben Vinson, who used colored militias to demonstrate how institutions provided the means by which social mobility occurred in colonial Mexico, von Germeten successfully uses the confraternities to establish similar patterns of social mobility for the Afro-Mexicans she studied. As a result of this approach, she has established without a doubt that Afro-Mexicans played active roles during the colonial era.

Globalization and Changing Patterns of Social Mobilization in Urban India

Recent developments around the globe – from organization into forums such as the World Social Forum to smaller protests – have necessitated a review of the notion of movements/mobilizations. There is an enhanced focus on ‘mobilizing/organizing’ masses. The character of mobilizations is radically transformed and is in a constant flux leading to explorations of newer ‘experiments’. Central to such a conceptualization, given the state of mobilizations worldwide, is the need to grapple with the causal factors and the dialectics of systemic dynamics and mobilizations. This paper seeks to comprehend the dynamics of mobilizations, their rise and fall in the light of contemporary developments of rampant consumerism and individualization resulting in shrinking collective spaces. It argues that in the transformed setting, when liberalism coexists with mounting coercion of private capital through state as well as non-state institutions, mobilizations of changed character will be ultimate expressions of resistance leading in due course to a macro-assertion. Such a debate has not been taken up seriously in India with the same intensity as in the Latin American context or in Western sociology. The arguments made in the paper are based on interviews with activists, interaction with activists and their experiences in different meetings as well as research based on secondary material.