Social Mobility Research Research Articles

Disentangling genetic and social pathways of the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability – A nuclear twin family study

As cognitive ability accounts for large parts of the intergenerational transmission of advantage, it is crucial to understand the mechanisms driving the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability itself. Social mobility research usually focuses on social mechanisms of intergenerational transmission. For the case of cognitive ability, this means that parental cognitive ability affects offspring ability via the family environment. However, parents do not only provide resources, but also pass their genes to their children. As social and genetic transmission are not mutually exclusive, it is crucial to disentangle the contribution of both to the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability. Using data from the German TwinLife survey, we apply a nuclear twin family design to address this question. Using data from all four twin birth cohorts, covering an age range of 5–25 years, we further explore whether the contribution of both mechanisms varies over the life course. For all four cohorts, in any of the estimated models, social transmission is very small and not significant. Genetic transmission, in turn, seems to be the primary mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability and becomes increasingly important with age. Our findings challenge conventional social mobility perspectives, stressing the need to incorporate genetic transmission into sociological research for a more comprehensive understanding of intergenerational transmission of advantage.

Social Mobility Across the Pacific: An Analysis of Japanese Americans in the Continental United States

The impact of immigrant parents’ premigration family background on their second-generation children residing in destination countries remains underexplored in the literature on historical social mobility. Using multigenerational historical survey records from the Japanese American Research Project, this study investigates the influence of premigration socioeconomic and cultural background of Japan-born grandparents and parents on the social mobility of second-generation Japanese Americans born in the continental United States in the early twentieth century. The analysis reveals the enduring effects of family premigration socioeconomic status, as indicated by occupation and education, and culture conducive to upward mobility, proxied by samurai ancestry, on second-generation Japanese Americans’ educational and income levels. These effects may extend back to their nonmigrant grandparents and possibly contrast with their European second-generation immigrant counterparts, who typically experienced upward mobility regardless of their family background. The results point to the critical role of origin-country socioeconomic status and culture in immigrant social mobility research, particularly for populations whose negative reception has hindered their resource access in their new countries.

Integrating intercohort changes in the composition of social origin into OED triangle research: A literature review and an outlook for future research

AbstractThis contribution highlights that conventional social mobility research in the sociological sciences is faced with a severe limitation, as it neglects the importance of intercohort changes in the social origin structure. This is illustrated by the example of OED triangle research, in which compositional changes are only partially recognized as important factors for social fluidity. The paper shows that the implications of an intercohort compositional change of social origin in the process of educational expansion and occupational change have often been overlooked in this literature. The paper makes theoretical and methodological suggestions for a better integration of the compositional change of social origin into future empirical analyses of the OED triangle.

The price of the ticket revised: Family members’ experiences of upward social mobility

In recent years, there has been a revived sociological interest in assessing the lived experience of upward social mobility. Several qualitative accounts have highlighted the negative emotional imprints of upward mobility, whereas quantitative researchers have suggested that the picture is far more optimistic. However, both strands of literature rely too narrowly on the perspectives of the upwardly mobile individuals themselves. Against this empirical strategy, which is expressed in recent works on upward social mobility, this article turns attention on the family members of those who experienced upward mobility. Drawing on biographical interviews with upwardly mobile individuals and their family members, the article explores, firstly, the participants’ diverging experiences and assessments of upward mobility, and secondly, how the process affects not only the emotional life of the upwardly mobile individuals themselves, but also of those who are commonly seen as having been ‘left behind’. In doing so, the article shows that including the voices of family members can refocus social mobility research on the wider psycho-social costs and consequences of what are often portrayed as stories of individual ‘success’.

Parental influence on subjective child well-being in Hungary

The paper extends the scope of social mobility research to family processes and family cohesion. The analysis aims to detect how various objective and subjective parental features influence subjective well-being (SWB) of adolescents in a dataset of 852 Hungarian families with 12–16-year-old children. SWB was operationalized by 14 comparable items on satisfaction with different domains of life, for both generations. The dependent variable is an aggregate SWB index, based on adolescents’ evaluations and OLS regression method is applied to uncover the association between parental well-being and children’s satisfaction. For a better understanding of this intergenerational process, we also control for parental education and material situation. The statistical model reflects gender, age and regional variation, as well. Results reveal a strong relationship between children’s and parents’ subjective well-being. Parental satisfaction with life and family- and work relations particularly affect offspring’s aggregate well-being. Material situation in the family matters more than parental education in the whole process. There is more variation in the results by the age of the adolescents than by gender. Findings reflect the importance of familial aspects and call attention to the relevance of soft, less intentional forms of status transmission.

Re-examining Social Mobility: Migrants’ Relationally, Temporally, and Spatially Embedded Mobility Trajectories

Social mobility research mainly investigates directional change in socio-economic circumstance. This article contributes to the strand of social mobility research that examines subjective experiences of economic movement. It analyses social mobility as a set of relationally, temporally and spatially embedded social practices, subjectively experienced and interpreted. The interactive nexus between social and spatial mobility is a fruitful line of inquiry, and the experiences of international migrants are distinctly suited for developing this analysis. Drawing on a qualitative study of migrants’ mobilities, both social and spatial, post-arrival in Australia, we argue that social mobility is experienced as sets of contingent social practices. These in/variably co-exist with aspirations for a sense of belonging and connectedness, a sense of security and other non-economic needs and desires and are also always adjusted over time. In addition, migrants’ status as legal, cultural or social Others shapes the experience of social mobility in distinctive ways.

Who Cares? Social Mobility and the ‘Class Ceiling’ in Nursing

Nursing is often associated with providing working-class women a route to upward social mobility. This article argues that although nursing is a relatively open profession, the impact of social class endures, with the main division between nurses who are from higher professional backgrounds and the rest. We utilise the Great British Class Survey (GBCS) to explore nurses’ social origins; the relationship between background and economic, social, and cultural capital; and the impact of origin and capitals on income (and inferred career trajectory). While recognising the methodological limitations of the GBCS, we suggest there may be a ‘class ceiling’ in nursing, and that class advantages are still significant in lower professions of the public sector. Class identification endures regardless of whether nurses have been upwardly or downwardly mobile. We also suggest future directions for intragenerational mobility and gender in social mobility research and make a case for longitudinal and qualitative analysis of nurses’ trajectories. Our findings indicate that the downwardly mobile children of the middle classes retain their classed advantages as they establish their own careers.

Comments and Expectations on the Research of Higher Education from the Point of View of Social Mobility Research and Research on Secondary Education

Comments and Expectations on the Research of Higher Education from the Point of View of Social Mobility Research and Research on Secondary Education

Movement, Space and Social Mobility in early and mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

ABSTRACTThe enthusiasm for creating new histories of social mobility has grown at a moment when sociologists in Britain have been engaged in a high-profile project to update the models of class they have used for more than 50 years. These endeavours share the same intellectual ambition: to show class and social mobility are multi-dimensional phenomena. However, as this article shows, these developments recall the infancy of British social mobility research, during the first three decades of the twentieth century, when the relationships between disciplines, institutions and ideas had yet to take the shape we now recognise.

An application of diagonal reference models and time-varying covariates in social mobility research on mortality and fertility

In social mobility research, the diagonal reference model (DRM) is argued to best isolate the effect of social mobility from origin and destination status effects. In demographic research, standard analyses of the duration until an event occurs rely heavily on the appropriate use of covariates that change over time. We apply these best-practice methods to the study of social mobility and demographic outcomes in Sweden using register data that covers the years 1996–2012. The mortality analysis includes 1,024,142 women and 747,532 men and the fertility analysis includes 191,142 women and 164,368 men. We identify the challenges inherent in this combination and present strategies with an application to how social mobility is related to both fertility and mortality. Our application is successful at incorporating all requirements related to these methods. Our findings suggest, however, that certain data characteristics, such as a relatively high share of missing data, can be problematic. We also find that controlling for origin and destination status generally provides acceptable estimates of the mobility association in the specific case of Sweden and the relationship between social mobility and both fertility and mortality.

Ability and mobility: The relative influence of skills and social origin on social mobility

The recent PIACC data offer us the first ever opportunity to identify the relative salience of abilities versus social origin in comparative social mobility research. Sampling 21 countries, we identify the degree of meritocratic selection by estimating the relative influence of social origin versus individual cognitive and social skills. We pay particular attention to the possibility of skills combinations as regards both upward and downward mobility. Social skills may compensate for weak cognitive abilities, or vice-versa; and what are the added effects of commanding strong skills on both counts? This is, as far as we know, the first time that comparative mobility research has examined such skills-complementarities. As in previous research we, too, uncover a significantly more egalitarian mobility pattern in the Nordic countries. This however obtains also for Canada and the Netherlands. A unique feature of Scandinavia is its asymmetric profile: significant upward mobility for those of low social origin, but surprisingly little downward mobility among those of privileged origins. Contrary to expectations, this cannot be ascribed to skills compensation. We find, however, that social skills play an important role for upward mobility among low-SES sons.

Low- and moderate-income families’ avenues to mobility: Overcoming threats to asset accumulation and remaining in undesirable neighborhoods

abstract Research on social mobility of low and moderate income families often uses objective measures and economic indicators of social mobility and quantitative research methods. In this paper we use a qualitative approach to understand how social mobility in terms of homeownership and desired neighborhood is pursued by 194 working families who received more than $1,000 in Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Specifically, we use cumulative advantage and disadvantage theory to explore the pathways and threats families encounter in their attempts to achieve homeownership and residence in desired neighborhoods. We find that families use different strategies to achieve social mobility and that the most successful families follow multiple strategies that involve pathways used by more affluent families like savings and help from family and friends as well as using social and governmental program and rent-to-own agreements. We discuss the implication for families, social organizations, and policymakers.

Socialinis mobilumas posocialistinėse šalyse: tyrimų būklė ir aktualios problemos

Straipsnio tikslas yra analitinė socialinio mobilumo posocialistinėse šalyse tyrimų apžvalga. Pirmame skirsnyje pristatomos socialinio mobilumo sąvokos ir tyrimų kryptys, aprašomi skirtingais socialinės struktūros modeliais grįsti socialinio mobilumo matavimo būdai. Antrame skirsnyje nušviečiami socialistinio laikotarpio socialinio mobilumo tyrimų bruožai. Toliau socialinio mobilumo tyrimai grupuojami pagal naudojamus klasinius ir neklasinius socialinės struktūros modelius. Trečiame skirsnyje analizuojami tarpklasinio socialinio mobilumo tyrimai, pabrėžiant juose naudojamas klasių schemas bei absoliutaus ir santykinio socialinio mobilumo skyrimo reikalingumą. Ketvirtoje straipsnio dalyje pristatomi tyrimai, besiremiantys statuso pasiekimo modeliu, išryškinant šių tyrimų metodologijos ypatumus ir jų ribotumus. Rečiau pasitaikančios socialinio mobilumo rūšies – subjektyvaus socialinio mobilumo – tyrimai aprašomi penktame skirsnyje. Paskutinėje straipsnio dalyje apžvelgiama socialinio mobilumo tyrimų situacija Lietuvoje, pristatomi socialinio mobilumo tyrimai socialistinėje ir posocialistinėje Lietuvoje.

Ruchliwość społeczna, nierówności społeczne i „dobre społeczeństwo”

Niniejszy artykuł w sposób krytyczny omawia najnowsze badania na temat ruchliwości społecznej, koncentrując się na wydanej w 2014 r. pracy amerykańskiego ekonomisty Gregory’ego Clarka. Tematyka artykułu wychodzi od omówienia wyników wybranych badań porównawczych nad międzypokoleniowym dziedziczeniem zarobków i wykształcenia, by następnie przedstawić główne założenia teorii Clarka i omówić jego innowacje metodologiczne, zastosowanie których doprowadziło go do sformułowania gruntownej krytyki dotychczas prowadzonych badań nad ruchliwością społeczną. W dalszej części artykułu omówiono wybrane badania nad skutecznością programów mających poprawić osiągnięcia szkolne dzieci pochodzących z rodzin o niskich dochodach oraz nad odziedziczalnością osiągnięć szkolnych. Wyniki tych badań zdają się potwierdzać wnioski Clarka dotyczące uniwersalnie niskiego poziomu ruchliwości społecznej oraz jej odporności na przemiany instytucjonalne. W podsumowaniu zwraca się uwagę na nowy stosunek pomiędzy ruchliwością społeczną a poziomem społecznych nierówności wyłaniający się z omówionych badań oraz na związaną z tym potrzebę zredefiniowania celów egalitarnej polityki społecznej.

The social gradient in preventive healthcare use: what can we learn from socially mobile individuals?

Little is known about the origins of the stratified nature of preventive health behaviour. In this paper, we introduce theory and methodology from the field of social mobility research. Intergenerational socially mobile individuals can provide insights into the central discussion about how health lifestyles or cultural health capital develop over the life course, as they have encountered different contexts of socialisation, each with its own characteristic health-related practices. We study the use of regular mammography screening by Belgian women using data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement and we operationalise social mobility as occupational mobility using the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88). By means of diagonal reference models, we are able to discern the effects of the social position of origin, the social position of destination and social mobility itself, contrary to the less rigorous linear regression approach that prevails in health behaviour research. As expected, the take up of mammography screening is strongly influenced by social position. It seems that both upwardly and downwardly mobile women adapt to the mammography screening practices in their position of destination. This study shows the potential for social mobility research to enrich the debate on health lifestyles.

Do Family Policies Matter for Educational Outcomes?

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to shed some light on the impact of family policies on educational mobility; this link has been often debated, but rarely measured. Another aim of this contribution is to build a bridge between social mobility research and social policy analysis. We investigate whether the level of expenditure on family services in the 1980s and 1990s has had a positive impact on educational achievements and mobility in 11 European countries, by closely looking at a cohort of young adults aged 25–35. To this end, multilevel logistic regression models that control for other policies that have an impact on educational mobility are presented; fixed effects models are also provided. Our results suggest that, in terms of the likelihood of going to university, these policies seem to have reduced the gap between individuals whose parents are well educated, and those who have a more modest background.

Marginal Man on Contentious Boundary: Chinese Political Elites’ Career Mobility

We argue that people that occupy marginal organizational positions have advantages in moving across contentious organizational boundaries. Ganshi were the “marginal man” in Chinese government organizations – their rank was low and their main job was to “get things done.” Discrete-time event history analysis of career histories of Chinese political elites indicates that ganshi were more likely to move between organizations that had conflict with each other, suggesting that the marginal man are less constrained by particularistic authority relations, are more likely to leave various people good impression, and have greater leeway developing novel practice which enhances their image as a capable person. The marginal man’s practice helps neutralize interorganizational conflict and the softened organizational boundaries in return facilitate their mobility. Our study highlights the imperative for studying contentious boundaries in social mobility research and the importance of the practice-based view for the in...

The Origin of Sociology of Occupation and the Historical Development of Social Stratification and Mobility Research in Japan, Shokugyou syakaigaku (Sociology of Occupation), by KunioOdaka. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1941, pp. 497

The Origin of Sociology of Occupation and the Historical Development of Social Stratification and Mobility Research in Japan, Shokugyou syakaigaku (Sociology of Occupation), by KunioOdaka. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1941, pp. 497

Discrete Graphical Models in Social Mobility Research - A Comparative Analysis of American, Czechoslovakian and Hungarian Mobility before the Collapse of State Socialism

Variants of path models have been widely used for the analysis of the social status attainment process. The methods presented here differ from earlier approaches in several ways. Social status is considered a categorical variable and path models are developed starting from graphical models, using the marginal log-linear approach. Overall model fit may be tested by standard techniques. Under these models, the status attainment process is completely characterized by a set of parameters that measure the strengths of the relevant effects. This is in sharp contrast with estimating and interpreting ad hoc parameters, without paying attention to overall model fit and to other effects influencing the process. The method is applied to the social status attainment process in the USA, Hungary and Czechoslovakia at the end of the last century, and shows that policies in the latter socialist countries to prevent status inheritance had little success.

No way back up from ratcheting down? A critique of the ‘microclass’ approach to the analysis of social mobility

‘Microclasses’, detailed occupational groups, have recently been suggested as being the basis of research in social stratification; occupations represent ‘real’ social groups in contrast to the purely ‘nominal’ categories of either ‘big class’ schemata or socio-economic status scales. The microclass approach in social mobility research has been applied in a recent paper, the authors claiming to show that a strong propensity exists for intergenerational occupational inheritance, and that such inheritance is the dominant factor in social reproduction and limits equality of opportunity. We model a larger version of the same Swedish dataset as used by these authors. We show: (i) that while with many occupational groups a marked degree of intergenerational inheritance occurs among men, such inheritance is far less apparent among women, and, for both men and women, accounts for less than half of the total association in the occupational mobility table; (ii) that the microclass approach does not deal in a theoretically consistent way with the remaining associational underlying patterns of occupational mobility, since appeal is made to the theoretically alien idea of ‘socio-economic closeness’; and (iii) that a standard class approach, modified to account for occupational inheritance, can provide a more integrated understanding of patterns of immobility and mobility alike. We also give reasons for doubting whether it will prove possible to establish a theoretically consistent microclass approach to explaining intergenerational mobility propensities. Finally, on the basis of our empirical results and of the relevant philosophical literature, we argue that the microclass approach is unlikely to be helpful in addressing normative questions of equality of opportunity.