Social Mobility

Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or groups between different positions within the system of social stratification. It is a central concern of sociology because the extent of social mobility in a society tells us about the openness and fairness of that society. If mobility is high, individuals' life chances are determined by their own abilities and efforts; if mobility is low, they are largely determined by the circumstances of their birth. The AQA specification requires you to understand the different types of mobility, evaluate key studies, and assess the meritocracy debate.

Key Definition: Social mobility is the movement of individuals or groups up or down the social hierarchy, usually measured by changes in occupational class between generations.

---

Types of Social Mobility

Intergenerational Mobility

This compares a person's class position with that of their parents (usually their father, in older studies). If a plumber's daughter becomes a barrister, that represents upward intergenerational mobility. If an accountant's son becomes a shop assistant, that is downward intergenerational mobility.

Intragenerational Mobility

This tracks changes in an individual's own class position over the course of their career. A person who starts as a shop floor worker and becomes a factory manager has experienced upward intragenerational mobility.

Absolute Mobility

Absolute mobility measures the total amount of movement between classes, regardless of direction. If the class structure changes — for example, if the number of professional jobs increases — there will be more room at the top, and more people will be upwardly mobile even if the relative chances of people from different backgrounds remain unchanged.

Relative Mobility

Relative mobility compares the chances of people from different class backgrounds reaching a particular class destination. It asks: is a working-class child's chance of reaching a professional job the same as a middle-class child's chance? Even if absolute mobility is high, relative mobility may be low — meaning the class structure has changed shape, but the odds remain stacked against those at the bottom.

Exam Tip: The distinction between absolute and relative mobility is crucial. High absolute mobility can mask persistent relative inequality. Always specify which type you are discussing.

---

Key Studies of Social Mobility

The Oxford (Nuffield) Mobility Study: Goldthorpe (1980)

The Oxford Mobility Study, led by John Goldthorpe and colleagues, is the most important British study of social mobility. It surveyed 10,000 men born between 1913 and 1952, comparing their occupational class with that of their fathers.

Key Findings:

1. High absolute mobility: There had been a significant amount of upward mobility — about a third of men born into the working class had moved into the intermediate or service (professional/managerial) class.
2. Structural mobility: Much of this upward movement was due to changes in the occupational structure — the expansion of professional and managerial jobs and the decline of manual work — rather than to increasing equality of opportunity.
3. Limited relative mobility: The relative chances of reaching the service class remained highly unequal. A boy from the service class was four times more likely to end up in the service class than a boy from the working class. Goldthorpe expressed this through the concept of the 1:2:4 rule of relative hope — for every one chance a working-class boy had of reaching the service class, an intermediate-class boy had two chances, and a service-class boy had four.
4. The buffer zone: The intermediate class acted as a barrier — movement between the working class and the service class was rarer than movement into or out of the intermediate class.

Evaluation:

• The study only included men — it tells us nothing about women's social mobility. Goldthorpe justified this by arguing that women's class was determined by their husband's occupation, a position strongly criticised by feminists such as Stanworth (1984).
• The study was conducted in 1972; the class structure has changed significantly since then.
• Despite these limitations, the finding of high absolute but limited relative mobility has been confirmed by subsequent research.

The Essex Study: Marshall et al. (1988)

Marshall and colleagues replicated aspects of the Oxford study using both men and women. They confirmed that:

• Absolute mobility remained high.
• Relative mobility remained stubbornly unequal.
• Women experienced more downward mobility than men, and more women were concentrated in routine non-manual occupations (class III).

Blanden et al. (2005) — Income Mobility

Jo Blanden and colleagues compared income mobility across two birth cohorts (1958 and 1970) and found that mobility had actually declined between the two cohorts. A child born in 1970 was more likely to remain in the same income group as their parents than a child born in 1958. The expansion of higher education in the 1990s had disproportionately benefited middle-class children, widening rather than narrowing the gap.

The Social Mobility Commission

The Social Mobility Commission (formerly the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission) publishes annual reports on the state of social mobility in Britain. Key findings include: