Social Mobility

Mobility and moral critiques of society

The mobility table

Findings of intergenerational studies

Determinants of social mobility

How important is parental status?

Social mobility and social structure

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, and groups from one social position to another. The theory of social mobility attempts to account for the frequencies with which these movements occur.

The study of social mobility relates a present to a past social position. It thus forms part of the more general study of social selection, i.e., of how people get distributed into different social positions. It is, however, hardly possible to study effectively the influence of past social position except in the context of other influences that determine the in dividual’s present social status. In practice, it has become increasingly difficult to separate the fields of social mobility and social selection. No rigorous separation has been attempted in the following discussion.

Studies of intergenerational mobility compare the social positions of parent and offspring; studies of career mobility compare the social positions of the same individual at different times. Group mobility is concerned with changes in the social position of groups possessing a relatively homogeneous status (for example, castes, intellectuals, artisans).

In the context of mobility studies, social position, or social status, signifies a certain rank with respect to the possession of goods (values) esteemed and desired by most members of a society. The changes in social position that interest the theory of social mobility are primarily variations in occupation, prestige, income, wealth, power, and social class. A high or low rank in one of these values is often associated with a roughly corresponding rank in most of the other values; consequently, position with respect to one of these values, and more especially a constellation of them, provides a measure of what in many societies is viewed as success in life. Studies in social mobility do not usually concern themselves with the possession of aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values. This is presumably due to the supposition, correct for most societies, that these goods do not measure“success in life.”Nor does their possession seem to lead, except in a limited number of societies, to the attainment of those material goods whose pursuit is more evident in human behavior and whose possession tends to limit the amount possessed by others and to provide opportunities foror at least the illusion of control over one’s own and others’ destinies.

Mobility and moral critiques of society

Political and moral critiques of society have both inspired and been inspired by studies in social and, more particularly, intergenerational mobility. This is understandable in view of the concern of intergenerational studies to show the relation of an individual’s life chances (income, occupation, prestige, etc.) to the social circumstances (parental status) in which he is brought up. Casual observation, historical studies, and quantitative inquiry have long made it evident that despite considerable intergenerational movement up and down the social ladder, many children of high-status and low-status parents retain, when adults, approximately the same status levels as their parents. Egalitarian sentiments are affronted by a social process that appears to condemn many children to the inferior life circumstances of their families or to guarantee to other children, by virtue of the more favored position of their families, a high degree of fortune. Observation of these continuities in family social position has led to the characterization of societies as“open”or“closed”according to the degree to which the adult status of offspring is independent of (open society), or dependent on (closed society), the social status of the parents.

Independence is sometimes interpreted, in this context, in its strictly statistical sense: societies are egalitarian (open, democratic) to the extent that children coming from very different family backgrounds have the same probability of achieving a specified status level. This criterion, however, could be met without any commonly accepted view of social justice being fulfilled. This distribution of social positions might equally well be achieved were children assigned to occupations or income levels by a state lottery or by a purely whimsical procedure of an absolute ruler.

Societies are also sometimes viewed as being more or less open according to the frequency with which social mobility occurs. This criterion is not consistent with the criterion of statistical independence. The maximum frequency of social mobility occurs (for example, in a two-status system) when all the children of high-status parents fall to low status and all children of low-status parents achieve high status. This entails certain consequences of dubious accord with commonly accepted notions of social equity: offspring of low-status parents must resign themselves to seeing their children excluded from high status; and the future social position of children is as fully fixed by that of their parents as in the most rigid caste society.

Evidently, moral and political critiques of society must rest not on distributions of children’s status by parents’ status (see Tables 1-4) but on the nature of the processes that produce these distributions. Late eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century writers on these problems were concerned in their critiques of society with the institutional and personal factors involved in mobility; they aspired toward a society in which merit and talent were rewarded and opportunities for their development and exercise were freely available. Contemporary writers have by no means abandoned this theme; but with the increased availability of quantitative data they have been more disposed to substitute summary statistical indices of the frequency of mobility for critical analysis of the total process of social selection. This seems to assume either that certain frequencies are in themselves desirable without regard to the institutional and personalfactors involved in social selection or that the frequency of mobility in itself provides secure knowledge concerning the nature and moral legitimacy of the selection system. Neither of these assumptions appears justified.

The mobility table

A central feature of most quantitative studies of intergenerational mobility is the mobility table ’(see Tables 1-4). An understanding of the technical problems associated with it is essential to the interpretation of the large body of data such tables have made available.

The mobility scale

If no additional assumptions are made, the social positions (e.g., occupations ) between which movement may occur remain a series of discrete, qualitatively different categories. The study of social mobility is, however, closely related to questions concerning social achievement and, more particularly, concerning the role of the parental social position in determining filial status. Interest attaches, then, to the amount of upward and downward mobility (or conversely, the amount of nonmovement, or inheritance). The terms“upward”and“downward”imply an ordering of the categories along some quantitatively defined axis. When the social positions are defined in terms of (occupational) prestige or income level, an ordering is more readily made, although in the first case not without difficulty. Often, however, the social position categories represent occupational classes (professional, entrepreneurial, clerical, skilled, etc.) or social classes (upper, middle, lower) arrived at, not by one clear-cut criterion (e.g., income, education), but by a mixture of criteria that often leaves the meaning of ordering on a single axis, and hence the interpretation of the data, in doubt. The difficulty is not entirely resolved by reducing the multiple criteria to a single score, since a considerable measure of arbitrariness enters into the weight assigned to each criterion in the total score.

Even if a satisfactory ordering is achieved, the categories may not mean-and in the empirical literature generally have not meantthat the social positions represent scale positions. It is, therefore, not always possible to say whether movement (“distance”) from social position A to social position B is as great as, greater than, or less than, movement from B to C. Recourse is sometimes had to speaking of the number of “steps”(ordered classes) through which movement has occurred. Clearly, however, these steps do not necessarily have the same significance, and this creates difficulties in relating the probability of movement be tween two positions to the“distance”separating them.

Mobility and number of social categories

A fundamental datum of the mobility table, the proportion of sons who manifest upward or downward mobility (or conversely, inheritance of the parental position), can be made larger or smaller by a simple change in the number of occupational or other classes representing the range of social positions. Thus, the amount of mobility (or inheritance) that a mobility table reveals is dependent on how fine (or broad) the social position categories area point that requires particular attention when inter-society comparisons are being made. The tendency toward arbitrariness in the number of occupational or other classes employed is increased both by the practical necessities of research (data availability, manageability) and by the use of multiple criteria in constructing the social-position classes.

Mobility within the life-span

Social position often varies during the life-span of the individual. It would, therefore, be desirable to make comparisons of the social position of father and son at several time points during their careers. This would also throw light on career mobility and bring its investigation into closer relation to intergenerational studies. Practical difficulties, especially in the specification of the father’s status at several time points, have generally discouraged the use of this procedure. If only a single time point in each career is used to fix the social position of the father and his son, a choice must be made appropriate to the objectives of the study.

When the aim is simply to measure the frequency with which sons attain a higher, lower, or similar status to that of their fathers, it is reasonable to match their occupations at corresponding ages, preferably a fairly mature age, when the occupational career has become relatively stable. Other choices are to compare the highest status levels achieved in each generation and to compare the occupations pursued over the longest number of years.

On the other hand, when analysis is directed toward understanding why the son attains the particular status that distinguishes his position, quite different considerations enter. The question is then which point in the parental occupational career best aids in the prediction of the filial status. Consequently, the investigator must choose a hypothesis to be tested; the question of comparability in the ages of father and son is not involved.

Sampling problems of father-son studies

Inter-generational mobility tables are usually constructed by obtaining from a sample of subjects (sons)their occupations and those of their fathers. But the probability of major interest is the probability that a son will attain a certain status given that the parent has a certain status. From this standpoint, and some others, it would be preferable to select a sample of fathers and trace the occupations of all of their sons, since the desired probability (when calculated from a table based on a sample of sons) is subject to error. This procedure is generally avoided because of the considerable age the fathers would have had to attain in order to ensure that the sons have likewise attained a fairly mature age and stable occupation. In addition, the fathers who have survived to that age would be a biased sample of the fathers of the current generation.

Adjusting for size of occupation

The mobility table provides an estimate of the relative frequency with which the sons of any particular class of fathers will be found in their fathers’ occupation (inheritance) or in an occupation of higher or lower status (mobility). However, the entries in the mobility table reflect not only the effect of the father’s status on the son’s occupational locus but also the effect of the size of each occupational group. The probability that the son of a cabinetmaker will also become a cabinetmaker is a function not only of the special advantages and motivations that may accrue to him from the nature of the paternal occupation (and family circumstances correlated with it) but also of the number of cabinetmakers that the society requires or supports. It is often desirable, then, to separate the component of mobility that is due to the current occupational distribution from the component that reflects the influence of the parental status. One way of effecting this separation is to relate the probability of movement from position E, to position Ek to the number of positions at E* currently available in the society.

The original entries, in percentage form, are the probability that a son will be in class E* given that the father is in class E, written

This expression is then divided by the proportion, P(Efc), aH sons who have entered occupation Et, which gives

where M, the mobility ratio, is the transformed entry that expresses the amount of movement (or in the diagonal cells, inheritance) from E,- to E% relative to the number of“openings”at Ek in the society (see Tables 1 and 2).

Adjustment for occupational birth rate

The chances of movement into a particular occupation are also affected by differences in the birth rate of the various occupational classes. If, for instance, doctors had very few children, then, assuming a constant size of the medical profession, the medical replacements of the next generation will tend to come more largely from the children of other occupational groups.

The effects on mobility of the occupational distribution and of differential occupational birth rates are sometimes termed structural components of intergenerational mobility. These are to be contrasted with the effect of parental status (and of factors correlated with it).

Interpreting mobility ratios

The calculation of Mik provides a standard in terms of which mobility may be viewed as high or low. If sons were distributed in occupations on a purely random (chance) basis, then the sons of any given parental class would enter the various occupations simply in proportion to the size of that occupation in the society. In this case MU, has the value of 1.0. A value of Mjti greater (or less) than 1.0 signifies that sons from a particular class of fathers are entering an occupation more (or less) frequently than would be expected on a purely chance basis. Thus, deviations of Mjk from 1.0 indicate the operation of factors associated with“father’s status.”

Findings of intergenerational studies

Tables 1-4 provide illustrative intergenerational mobility findings. In Tables 1 and 2 the upper entries in each cell are percentages, and the lower, parenthetic entries are the cell values for Mlk (see above). These are summary tables and do not permit analysis in terms of particular age groups orother demographic subdivisions. These and numerous other tables to be found in the literature suggest the following statements:

(1) Mobility tables uniformly show deviationfrom random distribution, that is, they show thatfilial status is statistically (and positively) de- pendent on parental status in varying degrees (seeTables 3 and 4). Impressive as this relationshipmay appear to casual inspection, it is equally ap- parent that the sons of most classes of fathers aredistributed in substantial numbers throughout mostof the status classes. Evidently, then, the status ofthe father permits considerable variation in thestatus of the son. A more precise summary state- ment of the over-all relationship suggested by theavailable studies is that probably not more thanone-quarter of the variance in filial status is ac- counted for by parental status; and this includesthe effect of some factors correlated with, but notproperly included in, parental status (e.g., race).

(2) The sons are most heavily overrepresented(as compared with random expectation) in thediagonal cells, that is, in those cells representinginheritance or a continuity by the son of the pa- rental status. This necessarily implies underrepre-sentation in some other cells. This underrepresenta-tion is generally spread over a larger number ofcells and is, therefore, less striking, except at timeswhen the parental and filial statuses are in verymarked contrast. It follows, then, that for thosesons who enter an occupational class different fromthat of their fathers, -which particular other occu- pational class will be entered is, generally, lessdependent upon the paternal status.

(3) The above findings lend themselves to tworather different emphases. On the one hand, it isprobably correct to say that only one-quarter or

less of the over-all variance in filial status is accounted for by parental status and that consequently other factors, taken collectively, play a more important role in determining the status of the son than does parental status. At the same time, it is possible to select particular cells and quite correctly emphasize the large deviations from random expectation in these cases: for example, the considerable excess representation in professional occupations of sons of professional fathers; or the considerable deficiency among professional workers of sons of unskilled workers.

(4) The probability that the sons of a particularclass of fathers, Et, will achieve a given statuslevel, Ek, is inversely proportional to the status“dis- tance”between social positions E, and Ek. Sincethe status“distance”is itself a function of severalvariables, such as education and income, this sum- mary formulation cloaks a number of more spe- cific relations of interest (see below).

(5) Much discussion has been devoted in recentyears to two questions: (a) whether the rate ofmobility has changed during the last generation ortwo; and (fc) whether European societies show alower rate of mobility (a greater continuity offamily status from generation to generation) thanthe United States. Despite the number of mobilitystudies now available, numerous difficulties withrespect to their design and comparability precludeconfident answers to the foregoing questions. Thefollowing statements are therefore tentative.

Studies of the United States and most Western industrial societies with increasing urban sectors and considerable provision for education show in the last two generations no substantial over-all change in the tendency of sons to inherit the father’s occupational class, at least when these are rather broadly defined. The available data do not suffice unequivocally to detect smaller changes that may in fact have occurred. It is evident that the decline in agricultural employment and someskilled crafts, and the emergence of new occupations, operate to reduce occupational inheritance. But such changes have not been confined to any one generation and therefore do not necessarily produce drastic alterations in the mobility pattern. This is particularly true when social position is defined in terms of occupational prestige. The new occupations may leave unaltered the relative frequency of different status levels in the society and the distribution of the labor force among them. The increased access to educational facilities and the growth of large-scale enterprises also suggest that the data should show a decreasing dependence of filial status on parental status; but it may well be that more limited access to education in earlier years was offset by the correspondingly weaker emphasis on formal educational requirements and a greater reliance on apprenticeship and learning“on the job.”

The United States has often been viewed as a society in which individual effort and merit are rewarded more substantially than in European societies and where family background counts for less than elsewhere in the distribution of status positions. Available studies, on the other hand, show no striking differences between the amount of mobility in the United States and western European societies (compare Tables 1 and 2 with Tables 3 and 4). However, most international comparisons have, in the search for comparability, reduced the data of individual studies to a least common denominator which denudes them of much of their value, and it is dubious whether, even so, comparability has been achieved. Nonetheless, there is one characteristic of U.S. society, absent in any similar degree from European societies, that may account for the difference between common assumptions and research findings; namely, a large Negro population subject to severe handicaps in the selection process. The position of the Negro in U.S. society adds to the correlation between parental

and filial status in the lower strata of the status hierarchy. When the upward mobility rate of unskilled white workers is considered separately, it is appreciably higher than the upward mobility rate for the total unskilled group. The assumption that the United States has higher mobility rates than European countries may, then, rest in part on a disregard of a sizable sector of the society.

Finally, if, as suggested above, parental status accounts at most for only one-quarter of the variance in the distribution of filial status, considerable differences could exist in the operation of different social-selection systems without necessitating correspondingly great differences in the specific effect of parental status.

Determinants of social mobility

Although the mobility table has been the principal product of many mobility studies, it leaves unanswered many questions central to the theory of social selection and social mobility. The“variable”parental occupation or status embraces, or rather conceals, a host of more specific influences. Research on social mobility is now increasingly directed toward untangling the roles of these more specific variables and shows a corresponding decrease of interest in simply adding new mobility tables to those already available. Further, with respect to the question of how people get sorted into different occupations or status levels, the mobility table can provide at best only a very partial answer, that is, an answer in terms of the statistical dependence of filial status on parental status. But there are clearly many other factors that determine occupational and status selection.

Father’s occupation

Parental occupation or status is related to the probability of filial entry into an occupation in two principal ways: (a) the father’s occupational status may be correlated with a variety of filial attributes, such as education, intelligence, and race, that affect the son’s occupational locus; (fe) the parental occupational status may affect filial occupational locus more directly: the father’s occupational experience may influence his son’s occupational interests and may provide him with special knowledge, experience, incentives, and opportunities for access to it or other occupations.

Educational level

A substantial portionsubstantial, relative to other variablesof the variation in status is accounted for by variations in educational level. Educational level is, of course, in considerable measure dependent upon the status level of parents. This dependence is lessened by increases in the society’s investment in educationalfacilities and the degree to which these make educational opportunities available without respect to social origin. To the extent that this occurs, the relation of education to status achievement is freed from an intermediate dependence on parental status. Sons of similar parental status show variations in educational levels, and the effect of these variations on status certainly cannot be ascribed to parental status. However, the extension of educational opportunities may at the same time reduce the correlation between status achievement and education. The more widespread a certain level of education becomes (for example, primary or secondary education), the less will variations in status, especially in the lower reaches of the status hierarchy, depend on variations in educational level provided, of course, that increased access to education does not change the status significance of the occupational groups.

Intelligence and mobility

Part of the effect of education on status achievement is due to the correlation of education with intelligence. In the process of status selection, variations in intelligence operate to influence the achieved level of social status, both by leading to variations in educational level and (for persons of similar educational level) by facilitating the advancement of those of greater intelligence. Certain educational attainments have, however, become such decisive prerequisites for entry into many occupational positions that high intelligence without the added attainment of a corresponding education is unable to produce its full potential effect. Even were educational opportunities commensurate with intellectual capabilities, the correlation of intelligence with status achievement would be limited by the dependence of achievement on motivational and other personality characteristics. An equally important limitation is the fact that, except in a certain gross sense, intelligence is not an overriding criterion in occupational selection and advancement.

Intelligence as customarily measured depends in part, in its turn, on environmental circumstances. But the present state of investigation also leads one to conclude that, even as currently measured, intelligence has a major genetic component. Consequently, part of the dependence of filial on parental status is due to two sources of correlation between parental and filial intelligencesocial and genetic.

Recent studies have been effective in demonstrating the existence of complex interactions between parental status, education, and intelligence and in establishing that each of these variables plays a significant role in determining filial status, both independently and by mediating the influence of the others. But tested models do not now exist that enable one to state quantitatively the probable change in status ensuing from an increment in one of the variables (occurring at a specified stage of an individual’s life), given the values of the other variables. The introduction of a genetic component of intelligence complicates the task of building such a model but at the same time appears indispensable if such models are to be used to derive a picture of the evolution of the mobility or social-selection system over time.

Discrimination

In some societies the existence of sizable racial or other groups subject to various modes of discrimination increases the dependence of filial status on parental status. The common obstacle shared by father and son tends to show up as a correlation between their status positions. Since status position as defined by mobility studies does not usually include the criterion of race, this necessarily inflates the degree of dependence of filial status on paternal status.

Other social handicaps

Relatively little attention has been paid in mobility studies to the role of special deficits that are not severe enough to exclude persons from the labor force and yet act as powerful handicaps to occupational achievement. High-grade mental deficiency, physical disabilities, chronic disease, mental disorders, alcoholism, etc., taken together, have a sufficiently high incidence and a sufficiently decided effect on occupational achievement to influence mobility tables. It is possible that a substantial part of the cases of extreme downward mobility can be accounted for in this way.

A neglected source of downward mobility

A further source of downward mobility may be viewed either as the result of a bias in the design of mobility studies or as an intrinsic feature of the parent-son status relationship. Mobility studies generally draw a sample of the gainfully occupied within the age range chosen for the investigation. The sample usually includes unmarried subjects and married subjects with and without children. The father sample, arrived at through the son sample, will, however, necessarily include only persons of the preceding generation who have at least one son and are therefore (in most cases) married. Since marriage and sometimes fertility are associated with greater occupational stability, mental and physical health, and general achievement, the fathers of the subjects will represent a special sample of their generation. If this is viewed as a bias in comparing the status of fathers and sons,it could be overcome by choosing the subject (son) sample only from those in the labor force who are married and have at least one child. Since, however, all sons must come from the special (father) sample of the preceding generation, it is more useful to view the differential character of the father and son groups as one source of downward mobility. Given the biological and social significance of marriage and, perhaps, fertility, fathers are, other things being equal, superior as a group to an un-selected sample of their sons. Consequently, one should expect that for this reason a number of the sons will arrive at status positions inferior to those of their fathers.

How important is parental status?

The variables cited above account for a large measure of the filial status distribution. Does this mean then that the emphasis on the derivation of filial status from parental status has been misplaced? In part, the answer is certainly, Yes. But there is, nonetheless, a danger that the reduction of parental status to a series of more specific and often independently operating factors may lead to a neglect of those sources of influence in the parental occupational situation that exercise a direct influence on the son’s occupational destiny by giving him special knowledge, incentives, and opportunities with respect to particular occupations. In dealing with sons who are professionals (or even more so, who are white-collar workers) it is fairly easy to account for their occupational status without making an appeal to the specific occupational locus of their parents. But if we are required to predict, not which sons will become professional or white-collar, but rather which sons will become doctors or cabinetmakers, then whether the parent is or is not a doctor or a cabinetmaker is still of considerable importance.

Behind the propensity of some classes of fathers to produce sons who follow in their occupational footsteps appear to lie certain relationships that, however, can be stated only very tentatively. Sons seem to be more likely to pursue their fathers’ occupations under certain conditions: (1) if the fathers are self-employed; (2) if the self-employed fathers utilize a substantial capital in the pursuit of their self-employed occupations; (3) if entry into the father’s occupation is regulated by licensing, examinations, union control, apprenticeship, or other obstacles that the parental status may aid the son to overcome; (4) if the parental occupation requires special training or education. Naturally, these relationships operate more effectively if the occupation involved provides satisfactory rewardsrelative to alternatives open to the sons.

There are numerous other individual and family attributes that affect the probability that a child will attain a given status position. The number of children in the family and the birth order of a child may in some institutional settings be particularly important. The motivations and aspirations of young people in different sectors of society obviously play an important role in determining the manner in which various individual and family assets and handicaps exercise their influence.

Social mobility and social structure

Finally, at least a brief word must be said about the relation of social selection and social mobility to the principal institutional structures of society. The research to which we owe the many mobility tables now available has been mostly pursued in Western industrialized societies with large urban sectors. This has made it easier to disregard the role of major institutional differences in the formation of social-selection systems. Current studies have tended to confine their attention more particularly to demographic and technological changes and to the role of educational institutions and the practices which affect access to them. Although there is a considerable literature on employment procedures, the study of social mobility has not adequately taken account of the fact that the occupational distribution process is a dual process, in which two sets of preferences and decisions, those of the employee and those of the employer or manager, confront each other, and that the distributive outcome is affected by the supply and demand of various qualities.

There are other major institutional features that, because of their relative stability, best reveal their relation to social mobility when it is studied over quite long time spans. Even the most stable political, juridical, and economic institutions of a society are of capital importance for the mobility process. Thus, the occupational selection process in Western society is decisively influenced by the nature of the labor contract, by laws relating to freedom of movement, and, ultimately, by the distribution of political power, together with the political and social sentiments associated with this distribution. As increasingly complex models of the social-selection process are developed, it will become necessary to specify more explicitly and exactly the institutional environment to which the model has application. Perhaps, too, it will become possible to relate parameter values to changes inthe institutional environment and thus to unify the interests of quantitative research and comparative historical inquiry.

Herbert Goldhamer

[See also STRATIFICATION, SOCIAL. Other relevant material may be found in CASTE; MARKOV CHAINS; OCCUPATIONS AND CAREERS.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliographical resources for the study of social mobility are excellent. For the earlier literature Sorokin 1927-1941 is still valuable. Lipset & Bendix 1959 provides an extensive listing of relevant literature in the course of a broad survey of occupational mobility, as well as a presentation of the authors’ own research. Consult also Mack et al. 1957 and Miller 1960. These sources can be brought up to date by consulting Sociological Abstracts.

For general surveys of social mobility, see Sorokin 1927-1941; Lipset & Bendix 1959; Barber 1957; Bendix & Lipset 1953. Studies of social mobility with national, regional, and special occupational samples are too numerous to list in detail. Representative studies for the United States are Taussig & Joslyn 1932; Warner & Abegglen 1955; Rogoff 1953; Jackson & Crockett 1964; Jaffe & Carleton 1954. For Great Britain, Ginsberg 1932; Glass 1954. For France, Bresard 1950; Desabie 1956. For the Scandinavian countries, Geiger 1951; Carlsson 1958; Svala-stoga 1959. For Germany, Bavaria, Statistisches Landesamt 1930; Janowitz 1958; Bolte 1959. For Japan, Nishira 1957. For Italy, Chessa 1912; Livi 1950. For the USSR, Inkeles 1950. For other countries, and for additional material on the foregoing countries, consult World Congress of Sociology. On the relation of education and intelligence to social selection and social mobility, see, in addition to the major sources already cited, Anderson et al. 1952; Conway 1958; Halsey et al. 1961; Duncan & Hodge 1963.

On the technical and methodological problems of studying social mobility, see especially Carlsson 1958; Svala-stoga 1959; Duncan & Hodge 1963. A developing literature on mathematical models of the mobility process includes Prais 1955; Blumen et al. 1955; Beshers & Reiter 1963; White 1963. A number of topics in social mobility (career mobility, three-generational mobility, social mobility of women, etc.) receive scant or no attention in this article. However, the reader will have no difficulty in finding material on these topics if he consults the more general works in the literature cited here.

Anderson, C. Arnold; Brown, J. C.; and Bowman, M. J. 1952 Intelligence and Occupational Mobility. Journal of Political Economy 60:218-239.

Barber, Bernard 1957 Social Stratification: A Comparative Analysis of Structure and Process. New York: Harcourt.

Bavaria, Statistisches Landesamt 1930 Sozialer Auf-und Abstieg im deutschen Volk. Beitrage zur Statistik Bayerns, Vol. 117. Munich: Lindauer.

Bndix, Reinhard; and Lipset, Seymour M. (editors) (1953) 1966 Ciass, Status, and Power: Social Stratification in Comparative Perspective. 2d ed. New York: Free Press.

Beshers, James M.; and Reiter, Stanley 1963 Social Status and Social Change. Behavioral Science 8:1-13.

Blumen, Isadore; Kogan, M.; and Mccarthy, P. J. 1955 The Industrial Mobility of Labor as a Probability Process. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press.

Bolte, Karl M. 1959 Sozialer Aufstieg und Abstieg: Eine Untersuchung iiber Berufsprestige und Berufs-mobilitiit. Stuttgart (Germany): Enke.

Bresard, Marcel 1950 Mobilite sociale et dimension de la famille. Population 5:533-566.

Carlsson, Gosta 1958 Social Mobility and Class Structure. Lund (Sweden): Gleerup.

Chessa, Federico 1912 La trasmissione ereditaria delle professioni. Turin (Italy): Bocca.

Conway, J. 1958 The Inheritance of Intelligence and Its Social Implications. British Journal of Statistical Psychology 11:171-190.

DESABIE, J. 1956 La mobilite sociale en France. Bulletin d’information 1:25-63.

Duncan, Otis D.; and Hodge, R. W. 1963 Education and Occupational Mobility: A Regression Analysis. American Journal of Sociology 68:629-644.

Geiger, Theodor 1951 Soziale Umschichtungen in einer ddnischen Mittelstadt. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

Ginsberg, Morris 1932 Studies in Sociology. London: Methuen.See especially pages 160-174,“Interchange Between Social Classes.”

Glass, David V. (editor) 1954 Social Mobility in Britain. London: Routledge.

Halsey, A. H.; Floud, Jean; and Anderson, C. Arnold (editors) 1961 Education, Economy, and Society: A Reader in the Sociology of Education. New York: Free Press.

Inkeles, Alex 1950 Social Stratification and Mobility in the Soviet Union: 1940-1950. American Sociological Review 15:465-479.

Jackson, Elton F.; and Crockett, Harry J. JR. 1964 Occupational Mobility in the United States: A Point Estimate and Trend Comparison. American Sociological Review 29:5-15.Provides a table based on a U.S. national sample, and reviews earlier national sample studies.

Jaffe, Abram J.; and Cahleton, R. O. 1954 Occupational Mobility in the United States: 1930-1960. New York: King’s Crown Press.A cohort analysis of the American working force, with projections of mobility trends.

Janowitz, Morris 1958 Social Stratification and Mobility in West Germany. American Journal of Sociology 64:6-24.

Lipset, Seymour M.; and Bendix, Reinhard 1959 Social Mobility in Industrial Society. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Livi, Livio 1950 Sur la mesure de la mobilite sociale: Resultats d’un sondage effectue sur la population italienne. Population 5:65-76.

Mack, Raymond W.; Freeman, L.; and Yellin, S. 1957 Social Mobility; Thirty Years of Research and Theory: An Annotated BIBLIOGRAPHY. Syracuse Univ. Press.

Miller, S. M. 1960 Comparative Social Mobility: A Trend Report and BIBLIOGRAPHY. Current Sociology 9, no. 1:1-89.

Nishira, Sigeki 1957 Cross-national Comparative Study on Social Stratification and Social Mobility. Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Tokyo, Annals 8:181-191.

Prais, S. J. 1955 Measuring Social Mobility. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A 118:56-66.

Rogoff, Natalie 1953 Recent Trends in Occupational Mobility. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press.

Sociological Abstracts?Published since 1952. Consult recent entries under“Social Stratification”;“Sociology of Occupations and Professions”; and“Sociology of Education.”

Sorokin, Pitirim A. (1927-1941) 1959 Social and Cultural Mobility. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press.?ReprintsSocial Mobility and Chapter 5 from Volume 4 of Social and Cultural Dynamics.

Svalastoga, Kaare 1959 Prestige, Class, and Mobility. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

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WORLD CONGRESS OF SOCIOLOGY Transactions.?Published since 1954. Transactions of the first congress, held in 1950, were not published.