Intergenerational mobility and racial inequality: The case for a more holistic approach

Intergenerational social mobility studies have largely explored the relationship between one aspect of parent background (e.g., education, income, occupational status, wealth, or neighborhood context) and the corresponding aspect of that parent's child once they reach adulthood. Studies examining these various measures have provided differing conclusions about the extent that social origins constrain attainment in the U.S. In contrast, the persistence of racial inequality in intergenerational mobility is one consistent finding. For instance, across various measures, research demonstrates Black individuals are more likely than White individuals to experience downward mobility, and less likely to exceed the socioeconomic standings of their parents. In this article, we argue that a more holistic measure of both origin and destination, one that combines the above-mentioned indicators, is necessary to advance our understanding of the extent that origin constrains future attainment. We summarize lessons gleaned from one-dimensional estimates, and from other approaches that either combine some dimensions of socioeconomic background or attempt to capture a more holistic background in other ways. We then make a recommendation for methodological interventions to accomplish this more holistic approach and conclude with research and policy implications.     

Social Integration,Psychological Well-Being,and Their Socioeconomic Correlates*

Unidimensional conceptions of socioeconomic status require that alternative indicators of one's position in the stratification system have similar effects upon the consequences of socioeconomic level. We show herein that different indicators of social participation and psychological well-being are in fact associated with different indicators of socioeconomic status. Thus, any attempt to combine these indicators—educational attainment, occupational pursuit, family income, or occupational origins—into a single index of socioeconomic status will prove unsatisfactory because its component parts have different consequences for the same variable. We also show in this paper precisely how certain formulations of the effects of inconsistency and mobility are wholly redundant and only represent a logically possible way of interpreting the linearly additive effects of the variables used to define inconsistency and mobility.     

Migration,family structure and children's well‐being: a multi‐level analysis of the second generation of the 1958 Birth Cohort Study

The relationship between moving home, family structure and children's well‐being, is examined in the National Child Development Study (NCDS) Second‐Generation. Well‐being is measured as attainment in maths and reading, and on two behavioural assessments. Multivariate multi‐level modelling allows for heterogeneity both within and between families. We find little to no association between moving home and children's well‐being. Associations between family living arrangements and children's development appear to be mediated by human, financial and social capital, but not, on average, worsened by geographical mobility. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Class,Family, Education,and the Process of Status Attainment: A Comparison of American and British Women College Graduates*

Turner's conceptualization of the relationship between education and social mobility in Great Britain and the United States as forming “sponsored” and “contest” systems is used as a theoretical framework for comparing the process of occupational status attainment of British and American women college graduates. British women graduates are more occupationally mobile than Americans; they gain more from attending prestigious institutions, studying science and mathematics and securing a higher class degree as compared with American women with similar qualifications. American graduate women benefit more from attaining a Ph.D. Marriage and motherhood have less significant, but different, cross-national effects.     

THE LONG-TERM EFFECT OF CHILDHOOD RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY ON EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Moving during childhood has typically been found to have negative effects on educational attainment. The loss of important social relationships is likely the cause. Many studies that examine the effect of residential mobility on education take a relatively short-term view by only looking at the effect for those no older than their late teens or early 20s. However, because many family moves are beneficial to children, in terms of improving their neighborhood or home environment, it is possible that the positive effects of family mobility do not appear until much later. I examine the effect of childhood residential mobility on educational attainment using the 1986 Canadian General Social Survey for individuals aged 25 and over. Results suggest that over the long run, residential mobility in childhood is beneficial for later educational attainment in that those who move between birth and age 15 are more likely to eventually graduate from high school than those who remain in the same community.     

Social origin,field of study and graduates’ career progression: does social inequality vary across fields?

Research on stratification and mobility has consistently shown that in the UK there is a direct impact of social origin on occupational destination net of educational attainment even for degree‐holders. However, only a few studies applied a longitudinal and dynamic perspective on how intergenerational mobility shapes graduates’ working careers. Using multilevel growth curve modelling and data from the 1970 British cohort study (BCS70), we contribute to this research by looking at the emergence of social inequalities during the first ten years since labour market entry. We further distinguish between graduates of different fields of study as we expect social disparities to develop differently due to differences in initial occupational placement and upward mobility processes. We find that parental class does not affect occupational prestige over and above prior achievement. Separate analyses by the field of study show that initial differences in occupational prestige and career progression do not differ between graduates from different classes of origin in STEM fields, and arts and humanities. It is only in the social sciences that working‐class graduates start with lower occupational prestige but soon catch up with their peers from higher classes. Overall, our results indicate no direct effect of social origin on occupational attainment for degree‐holders once we broaden our focus to a dynamic life course perspective.     

Cultural transmission,educational attainment and social mobility

This paper examines the relationship between cultural socialisation, educational attainment and intergenerational social mobility. Picking up on debates about the transmission of cultural capital and social advantage, we use data from the Taking Part Survey of England to analyse how far socialisation into cultural activities and encouragement play a role in educational attainment, intergenerational mobility and in the reproduction of class. This survey has unprecedented data on whether respondents had been taken to museums/art galleries, theatre/dance/classical music performances, sites of historic interest, and libraries when they were growing up. This is buttressed by information on how much parents or other adults encouraged the respondents to read books or to be creatively active in different domains of the arts, literature and music. Using these rich measures of childhood socialisation, we can show that part of the effect of parental class on educational attainment is due to the transmission of this kind of cultural capital. Moreover, this transmission also has a direct effect on the level of educational attainment. In a similar fashion, respondents who have experienced a higher intensity of cultural socialisation are more likely to be upwardly mobile, and likewise, cultural transmission has a positive effect on the prevention of downward mobility among service class children. These results are discussed in the light of current issues in British mobility research and its treatment of cultural aspects of class and mobility.     

Veblen's theory applied to information specialists

This paper examines the paradoxical class situation of information specialists in the post-industrial society as both professionals and employees. It describes and analyses the ‘technocratic’ authority wielded by them and their mode of consciousness. It's assessed whether these workers function as the vanguard of a new style of democratised work or buttressed the position of managerial authority. It has been found that the subjects experience a class situation that is somewhat more empowered than the industrial or corporate models, but do not differ substantially from that of the production workers in industrial society. Their power, prestige, privilege and status essentially camouflage the subjects’ compliance to hierarchical authority. The subjects exhibit awareness of their power, but essentially they direct their energies toward task attainment and individual mobility. Lacking an orientation toward structure change, the information specialists do not appear to fit the notion of a vanguard group. From this research they have been foreseen some possibilities of changes within organisational authority as information specialists confront management with their expertise, but it's anticipated that the institutions of social domination will prevail, as we can read in some Veblen's theory.     

Economic hardship in the family of origin and children's psychological well‐Being in adulthood

Past research consistently indicates that poverty and economic hardship have negative consequences for children. Few studies, however, have examined whether these consequences persist into adulthood. This study addresses this gap by assessing whether economic resources in the family of origin have long‐term effects on psychological well‐being in adulthood. Specifically, we test two processes—one involving interpersonal processes in the family of origin, and the other involving children's socioeconomic attainment—that may help to explain the link between early economic factors and later well‐being. Using 17‐year longitudinal data from two generations (N= 589), we find evidence that economic hardship in the family of origin predicts later adult well‐being through the parents’ marital relationship, the parent‐teen relationship, children's educational attainment, and children's earned income. Supplementary analyses suggest that economic hardship is particularly problematic when it is of long duration or when it occurs during adolescence.     

Disadvantaged through discrimination? The role of employers in social stratification1

Sociologists have consistently demonstrated that a rather strong association exists between an individual's social class origin and their social class destination, even after controlling for educational attainment. One explanation for this persisting association which is rarely addressed in research in social stratification and mobility is the extent to which class inequalities in access to advantaged class positions are due to discrimination by employers. I set up a field experiment to test whether employers discriminate on the basis of class origin characteristics. I sent letters of job application for professional and managerial occupations to 2560 large UK companies, so as to compare the prospects of equally matched potential employees differing on a range of characteristics, some related to class of origin. The six treatment conditions in the experiment were: the name of the candidate, the type of school attended, the candidate's interests outside work, their sex, the university that they attended and their achieved degree class. Results suggest that employers do pay attention to the class origin characteristics tested here, and that candidates with a name, school type and interests associated with the social elite are more likely to receive a reply to their application than candidates with the equivalent non‐elite characteristics. However, the treatment conditions do not, on the whole, have significant effects on the employers' responses in and of themselves. Instead, employers appear to favour particular combinations of characteristics while penalising others.     

Increasing inter‐generational social mobility: is educational expansion the answer?

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy‐makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility.     

The Mobility of Elderly Residents Living in Suburban Territories

Abstract

Many authors have observed die elders' unanimous aspirations to age in place. Such residential aspirations echo theoretical concepts such as “environmental-fit.” Aging residents adapt to their residential environment according to their autonomy level, their financial and social resources, as well as the meanings they invest in both residential situations and lifestyle (Lord, 2004; Wagnild, 2001). Therefore, the suburbs constitute a challenge for aging residents' intentions to remain in their home for as long as possible. These low-density environments encourage car dependency for almost every daily activity. In that regard, many studies have investigated the daily mobility patterns of elders living in such areas. However, most of them have focused on aspects linked to transportation and driving security (Rosenbloom, 2003). In this context, with a socio-anthropological (in-depth interviews) method, the elders' daily mobility is explored in a complex layering of issues. Two interdisciplinary qualitative researches on the daily and residential mobility of elderly suburbanites have been used: a group living in Quebec City's Post-War suburbs in Canada (n = 56) and another in Marseille's periurban suburbs in France (n = 36). The results show that we must investigate beyond the elders' “emotional attachment”to their “home” in order to explain the everyday tensions underlying accessibility and daily mobility. Aging in a single-family house is more than a deliberate choice. Moving away from one's neighborhood is considered a last resort alternative by the majority. Instead, the elderly from both milieus will adapt their lifestyles to the environment by redesigning their daily activities and their mobility practices in order to age in place. Therefore, adapting daily mobility practices to social interactions and social representations all become a sine qua nonecondition.     

Careers Open to Talent: Educational Credentials,Cultural Talent,and Skilled Employment1

In the status attainment and social mobility literatures, “talent” is often conceptualized as educational attainment or mental ability. We adapt Bourdieu’s notion of embodied cultural capital and Goffman’s notion of “staging a character” into another dimension of talent, what we call “cultural talent,” and hypothesize that an ability to wield cultural talent in hiring or promotion scenarios facilitates attainment of skilled, complex jobs. Bivariate analyses and multiple regression modeling performed on data from an original survey show that educational credentials and cultural talent both predict occupational skill and complexity.     

Pathways from origins to destinations: Stability and change in the roles of cognition,private schools and educational attainment

While much attention has been devoted to measuring levels of social mobility over time, less attention has been given to the possibility of changing pathways to social mobility. This paper examines pathways from social origins to socio-economic destinations in midlife for two British cohorts, born in 1958 and 1970 respectively, using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). We address the roles of cognitive attainment, private schooling and educational attainment in mediating the link between social origins and destinations. Have these mechanisms become more or less important over time, in a context of structural change in the state schooling system and educational expansion? We find that private schools displayed greater academic selectivity and an increased link to high levels of educational attainment for the younger cohort. Essentially, private schools adapted to changing circumstances, becoming more academically selective and less socially selective, and more focused on educational credentials. Childhood social origins were less strongly linked to childhood cognitive scores in the younger cohort, but cognitive scores were also more weakly linked to educational attainment for this cohort. We also find a decreased association between social origins and educational attainment for the younger cohort. While the finding that educational inequalities weakened over this time period is positive, the lack of a corresponding reduction in the overall link between social origins and destinations suggests that reducing educational inequalities was not sufficient to increase social mobility when accompanied by countervailing changes in the role of private schools.     

“Migrant Capital” and Domestic Work: Labour Trajectories of Immigrant Women in Spain

This article analyses the labour trajectory of migrant women in domestic service. The research considers women's working conditions upon arrival, or their “migrant capital” (i.e. their human, social and economic capital) as the defining factors in their labour trajectories. The study, conducted on a sample of migrant women in domestic service, reveals the different value each type of capital has at each stage of a labour trajectory. The social network is the core capital in their first job. Nevertheless, the key factors in labour mobility are human capital and a household's financial needs. The processes of administrative regularization and family reunification prompt far‐reaching changes in these women's labour trajectories. Finally, labour trajectories during the economic crisis have been shaped by financial needs, leading to a decapitalization of the human capital acquired, with even legal status surrendering its value.     

Habitus,social elevation,and the channel of shame‐fear: The decision to expand Guinness advertising

This article explains the relationship between social habitus, social mobility and shame feelings using Elias's theoretical frame of figurational sociology. Much work to date has centred on Bourdieu's theoretical formulations and while there are clear parallels with Elias, significant differences exist. Elias identified how shame functions as a key channel for the transmission of social tensions generated by the structure of social relations into the social habitus of individuals. We explain how apparently rational decision‐making in organisations obscures the emotional dynamics of shame and fear connected with processes of social elevation, habitus change and shifting power relations between social classes. Our empirical case concerns the brewer Arthur Guinness & Sons Ltd and the decision in 1927 to sanction a direct advertising campaign in Britain for the first time.     

Strategies for Measuring and Promoting Mothers' Social Support Networks

ABSTRACT

This chapter recommends respondent-driven sampling (RDS) and peer-driven intervention (PDI) as new strategies for improving safe motherhood and women's health in countries where women have limited access to information and communication technology. Strategies for measuring and promoting mothers' social support networks could be applied to enrich communication about reproductive health and safe motherhood, especially in countries where women's low social status leads to child marriage, low educational attainment/illiteracy, and limited access to modern information and communication technology. By using RDS to study communities and social network structures, outreach workers can educate women via women's social support groups, enhancing and broadening the use of modern information and communication technologies. RDS is a strategy that allows researchers to identify and focus on distinct groups within a community. PDI uses a two-step intervention where respondents are educated by outreach workers and previous participants (members of social support groups). Limitations of these approaches are also discussed.     

Maternal Age and Offspring's Educational Attainment

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the current study examines which maternal age at birth provides offspring with optimal opportunities for higher educational attainment. The results show that maternal age has a curvilinear relationship with offspring's educational attainment, that is, the offspring of younger and older mothers are distinctly disadvantaged. Maternal ages 31 through 40 are associated with the highest offspring educational attainment, suggesting that women who give birth in their 30s have more favorable characteristics than younger or older mothers. The analysis demonstrates that—with the exception of early teenage childbearing—the association between maternal age and offspring's educational attainment likely reflects selection patterns in fertility timing, rather than direct within‐family effects of maternal age on offspring's educational attainment. Thus, the results provide insufficient evidence to conclude that delaying childbearing beyond age 18 directly benefits or harms offspring's educational attainment.     

Industrialization and the Regime of Social Mobility in Postwar Japan

Abstract  This paper examines the hypothesis that the fluidity and openness of social stratification increase with industrialization, by applying a path analysis of status attainment and a log-linear analysis of social mobility to data from National Survey on Social Stratification and Mobility carried out five times at ten-year intervals since 1955 in Japan. The following two points are clarified through this analysis. First, the status attainment regime was constant from 1955 to 1995; when the effects of opportunity expansion due to economic growth are controlled, the data do not provide evidence that the openness of social stratification improved; and the industrialism thesis on openness is actually an illusion caused by the effects of economic growth. Second, the mobility regime was constant from 1955 to 1985, but the data from the 1995 survey do not fit the previous pattern and suggest a transformation may be under way. Based on the above findings, I will note that dissolution of the mobility regime must be considered when discussing the reality of future social stratification.