Social Mobility

Last week we talked about social mobility. Social mobility refers to the movement of an individual from one class to another. It is usually defined by occupation but could also be defined by education. There are two types of social mobility: intergenerational and intragenerational. Intergenerational social mobility refers to the difference in social class of an individual in relation to their parents. Intragenerational social mobility refers to the change in social class within one’s own life.

I thought it was really interesting to learn about social mobility and link it to my own life. I would also consider my parents to be middle class. This is based on both the education and occupation that my parents have. Both of my parents went to university and had good jobs. They were able to make a good living for themselves and our family. As such I was also able to go to university and will (hopefully) get a good job. I would also consider myself middle class, therefore unless something happen I think there would be no intergenerational social mobility between my parents and I.

It is tough to say how much intragenerational social mobility I will encounter in my lifetime. At this present time I would venture to guess that I will stay middle class my whole life, unless something misfortunate happens and I drop a social class or something miraculous happens and I move up a class. I think this because of the social mobility of our society is based on contest mobility and people must compete for success and earn elite status. In contest mobility, people can always move to different social classes depending on the circumstances of their life. We allow people to go back to school at any time to increase their status, however this also opens up the possibility of movement down a social class if someone fails.

In contrast to contest mobility of our society, the social mobility in England is based on sponsored mobility. This implies that the elite give social class to the people they think are suitable. In this system there is an emphasis on early selection in which young students are selected so they can be moulded into the type of individuals the elite want. Generally there is very little intergenerational mobility and the sons are expected to take on the same type of job of their father. The people in this system seem to understand that there is little mobility and therefore they take ownership of the job they do.

I think there is something to be said for people doing the best job they can do, regardless of what the job is. I think that sometimes in the contest mobility system, people see their job as simply a stepping stone and do not put out their full effort. Although I would not want a system where there is no opportunity for movement between classes, I think people should be encouraged to work hard all the time.