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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. Mobility is therefore the empirical test of the meritocracy claim at the heart of functionalist theory. 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.
This lesson addresses the specification requirements on:
This is a highly examinable topic: the absolute/relative distinction and the meritocracy debate are perennial 20-mark essay themes.
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.
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 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 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.
How mobility is measured shapes the conclusions drawn — a key synoptic link to Theory and Methods:
Recognising these methodological choices is exactly the kind of evaluation that lifts an answer — it shows that "the evidence on mobility" is shaped by how mobility is defined and measured.
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:
The four key distinctions you must control can be mapped as two crossing axes:
flowchart TD
A["Social mobility"] --> B["Direction & timeframe"]
A --> C["Reference point"]
B --> D["Intergenerational: child vs parent"]
B --> E["Intragenerational: across one career"]
C --> F["Absolute: total amount of movement"]
C --> G["Relative: comparative chances from different origins"]
F --> H["High absolute mobility can hide low relative mobility"]
G --> H
Evaluation:
Marshall and colleagues replicated aspects of the Oxford study using both men and women. They confirmed that:
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.
Imagine the occupational structure expands so that professional and managerial jobs grow from a quarter to half of all jobs. Absolute mobility rises automatically: there is simply "more room at the top," so many working-class children move up regardless of any change in fairness. But if, at the same time, middle-class children remain (say) several times more likely than working-class children to secure those expanded top jobs, then relative mobility — the comparison of chances — has not improved at all. This is precisely Goldthorpe's finding: the post-war rise in upward movement was largely structural (driven by the changing shape of the job structure), masking stubbornly unequal relative chances captured in the 1:2:4 rule. The lesson for essays: never treat "more people rose" as evidence of a fairer society without checking what happened to relative chances.
More recent analysis by Bukodi and Goldthorpe has reinforced the durability of the pattern: using both class and income measures across cohorts, they argue that total mobility rates have been broadly stable but that the balance has shifted — downward mobility has become more common for some recent cohorts as the rapid expansion of professional jobs has slowed. This challenges any simple story of ever-rising opportunity and supports the "mobility has stalled" thesis discussed below.
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:
The Sutton Trust, an educational charity founded by Sir Peter Lampl, is a major source of evidence on access to elite education and the professions. Its research has consistently documented:
The Sutton Trust's work is valuable because it identifies the concrete mechanisms — not just the outcomes — through which class advantage is reproduced, directly supporting the case against pure meritocracy.
Each major perspective interprets the mobility evidence differently — a comparison that strengthens essay answers:
| Perspective | Reading of social mobility |
|---|---|
| Functionalism | Mobility demonstrates an open, meritocratic society in which talent rises (Davis and Moore; Saunders). Inequality of outcome is acceptable provided there is equality of opportunity. |
| Marxism | Limited relative mobility shows the ruling class reproduces its position; apparent openness is ideological, legitimising inequality by implying that those at the bottom deserve their fate. |
| Weberianism | Mobility reflects differences in market situation and is restricted by social closure (Parkin) — professions and elites monopolise opportunities through credentials and networks. |
| Bourdieu | Mobility is constrained by the unequal distribution of cultural, social and economic capital and by habitus; the education system reproduces advantage while appearing neutral. |
The key evaluative move is to note that the same evidence (high absolute, low relative mobility) is read as success by functionalists and as reproduction by Marxists and Bourdieu — so interpretation depends on theoretical standpoint.
Meritocracy is the principle that rewards should be distributed on the basis of individual talent and effort. In a meritocratic society, your class destination would be determined entirely by your ability and hard work, not by the class into which you were born.
Michael Young (1958) coined the term in his satirical novel The Rise of the Meritocracy. Young actually warned that meritocracy could become a dystopian ideology — used by the successful to justify their position and to blame the unsuccessful for their own failure.
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