Social mobility

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Social Mobility - Introduction

Social mobility is the degree to which, in a given society, an individual's social status can change throughout the course of his or her life, or the degree to which that individual's offspring and subsequent generations move up and down the class system. It is, in other words, the movement ( or circulation ) of individuals, families or groups within a social space mapped by status, occupation, income, and similar variables through which members of a sociary may be defined.

According to the degree or the ease of the circulation, it is possible to make distinction between immobile ( or closed societies ) and mobile societies where the transition from one social stratum to another has had minimum resistance. An important caveat: There scarcely has existed a society whose strata were absolutely closed, just as there has hardly ever existed a society where the vertical mobility was absolutely free of obstacles.

Examples of closed societies were feudal and caste societies. Societies which use slavery are an example of low social mobility because, for the enslaved individuals, mobility is nonexistent. In Hindu society, under the caste system, only with rare exceptions could individuals leave the caste into which they were born, regardless of wealth or merit. However, even there, the individuals born in a lower social stratum might succeed in entering the top caste as, for example, the son of Mahatma Gandhi, the rank of a Brahmin. There is a catch in it, though. Although societies with low or nonexistent social mobility might afford free individuals opportunities to amass wealth, wealth itself very rarely can "buy" entry into a higher social class. In feudal Japan and Confucius-era China, wealthy merchants occupied the lowest ranks in society. In pre-revolutionary France, a nobleman, however poor, was from the "second estate" of society and thus superior, at least in theory, to a wealthy merchant (from the "third estate"). Similar case can be made for quasi-feudal monarchies of modern era too. In Saudi Arabia and neighboring sultanates, a commoner cannot become a head of state nor can he hold any high or important position in the government. He can become rich, though.

On the other hand, modern western democracies are characterized by much more intensive vertical mobility. In democratic societies, the social position of an individual, at least theoretically, is not determined by his birth; all positions are open to everybody who can get them; there are no judicial or religious obstacles to climbing ( or going down ). Official or legally recognized class designations do not exist, and it is possible - though rare - for individuals to move from poverty to wealth or political prominence within one generation. A case of Andrew Carnegie, who arrived in the U.S. as a poor immigrant and later became a steel tycoon is well known. Another example, from France, is Pierre Bérégovoy who started working at the age of 16 as a metal worker and, in the end, became Prime Minister of France. Nevertheless, such examples tend to be the exception rather than the rule. While a few individual members of the working class or even immigrants manage to achieve positions of wealth or power, the overwhelming majority do not. Indeed, it is physically impossible to have more bosses than workers; thus it is impossible for the majority of workers to rise out of their social class.

Also, in market societies like the modern United States, class and economic wealth are strongly correlated and, therefore, often conflated. In some societies, on the other hand, they are time-lagged factors at play. Usually, membership in a high social class provides more opportunities for wealth and political power, and therefore economic fortune is often a lagging indicator of social class. In newly-formed societies with little or no established tradition (such as the American West in the 19th century) the reverse is true: Made wealth precipitates the elite of future generations.

Social Mobility - Basic Theories, Trends, and International Comparison

External links

The New York Times offers a graphic about social mobility, overall trends, income elasticity and country by country. European nations such as Denmark and France, are ahead of the US. [1]


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