Intergenerational class mobility in contemporary Britain: Political concerns and empirical findings1: Intergenerational class mobility in contemporary Britain

(2007) - John H. Goldthorpe, Michelle Jackson

Journal: The British Journal of Sociology
Link:: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00165.x
DOI:: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00165.x
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #Mobility #SocialClass
Cite Key:: [@goldthorpeIntergenerationalClassMobility2007]

Abstract

In Britain in recent years social mobility has become a topic of central political concern, primarily as a result of the effort made by New Labour to make equality of opportunity rather than equality of condition a focus of policy. Questions of the level, pattern and trend of mobility thus bear directly on the relevance of New Labour’s policy analysis, and in turn are likely be crucial to the evaluation of its performance in government. However, politically motivated discussion of social mobility often reveals an inadequate grasp of both empirical and analytical issues. We provide new evidence relevant to the assessment of social mobility – in particular, intergenerational class mobility – in contemporary Britain through cross-cohort analyses based on the NCDS and BCS datasets which we can relate to earlier cross-sectional analyses based on the GHS.We find that, contrary to what seems now widely supposed, there is no evidence that absolute mobility rates are falling; but, for men, the balance of upward and downward movement is becoming less favourable. This is overwhelmingly the result of class structural change. Relative mobility rates, for both men and women, remain essentially constant, although there are possible indications of a declining propensity for long-range mobility.

Notes

“We find that, contrary to what seems now widely supposed, there is no evidence that absolute mobility rates are falling; but, for men, the balance of upward and downward movement is becoming less favourable. This is overwhelmingly the result of class structural chang” (Goldthorpe and Jackson, 2007, p. 525)