IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v16y2011i3p28-41.html

Is Social Mobility Really Declining? Intergenerational Class Mobility in Britain in the 1990s and the 2000s

Author

Listed:
  • Yaojun Li
  • Fiona Devine

Abstract

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on social mobility in contemporary Britain among economists and sociologists. Using the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we focus on the mobility trajectories of male and female respondents aged 25-59. In terms of absolute mobility, we find somewhat unfavourable trends in upward mobility for men although long-term mobility from the working class into salariat positions is still in evidence. An increase in downward mobility is clearly evident. In relation to women, we find favourable trends in upward mobility and unchanging downward mobility over the fourteen-year time period. With regard to relative mobility, we find signs of greater fluidity in the overall pattern and declining advantages of the higher salariat origin for both men and women. We consider these findings in relation to the public debate on social mobility and the academic response and we note the different preoccupations of participants in the debate. We conclude by suggesting that the interdisciplinary debate between economists and sociologists has been fruitful although a recognition of similarities, and not simply differences in position, pushes knowledge and understanding forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Yaojun Li & Fiona Devine, 2011. "Is Social Mobility Really Declining? Intergenerational Class Mobility in Britain in the 1990s and the 2000s," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(3), pages 28-41, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:16:y:2011:i:3:p:28-41
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.2424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.2424
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.2424?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Corak,Miles (ed.), 2004. "Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521827607, Enero-Abr.
    2. John Hills, 2010. "An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK - Report of the National Equality Panel," CASE Reports casereport60, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    3. Nicoletti, Cheti, 2008. "Multiple sample selection in the estimation of intergenerational occupational mobility," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Geoff Payne & Judy Roberts, 2002. "Opening and Closing the Gates: Recent Developments in Male Social Mobility in Britain," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 6(4), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Geoff Payne, 1987. "Mobility and Social Class," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Employment and Opportunity, chapter 8, pages 189-192, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2009. "Family Income and Education in the Next Generation: Exploring income gradients in education for current cohorts of youth," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 09/223, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yaojun Li, 2013. "Social Class and Social Capital in China and Britain: A Comparative Study," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(1), pages 59-71.
    2. Anna Klimova & Tamás Rudas, 2012. "Coordinate-free analysis of trends in British social mobility," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(8), pages 1681-1691, January.
    3. Yaojun Li, 2013. "Social Class and Social Capital in China and Britain: A Comparative Study," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(1), pages 59-71.
    4. Yaojun Li, 2020. "Social mobility in China: A case study of a quantitative sociological approach to social mobility research in the Global South," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-4, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Alexi Gugushvili & Olga Zelinska, 2023. "What are the Trends and Explanations of Perceived Social Mobility in Poland?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 811-832, April.
    6. Yaojun Li, 2018. "Integration Journey: The Social Mobility Trajectory of Ethnic Minority Groups in Britain," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 270-281.
    7. Li Yaojun, 2020. "Social mobility in China: A case study of a quantitative sociological approach to social mobility research in the Global South," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-4, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Yaojun Li, 2018. "Integration Journey: The Social Mobility Trajectory of Ethnic Minority Groups in Britain," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 270-281.
    9. Lex Thijssen & Maarten H. J. Wolbers, 2016. "Determinants of Intergenerational Downward Mobility in the Netherlands," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 995-1010, September.
    10. Yaojun Li & Yizhang Zhao, 2017. "Double Disadvantages: A Study of Ethnic and Hukou Effects on Class Mobility in China (1996–2014)," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 5-19.
    11. Lasierra-Asun, Diana, 2023. "La clase social como elemento limitador de la movilidad, la inmovilidad persistente [Social class as a limiting element of mobility, The persistent immobility]," MPRA Paper 117093, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Adrian Byrne & Natalie Shlomo & Tarani Chandola, 2023. "Multilevel modelling approach to analysing life course socioeconomic status and understanding missingness," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 275-297, July.
    13. Yanjie Bian & Mingsong Hao & Yaojun Li, 2018. "Social Networks and Subjective Well-Being: A Comparison of Australia, Britain, and China," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(8), pages 2489-2508, December.
    14. Andrea Lizama-Loyola, 2022. "Teachers’ Narratives of Life Satisfaction, Social Mobility, and Practical Sense of Inequalities in Chile," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 27(2), pages 342-360, June.
    15. Yaojun Li & Yizhang Zhao, 2017. "Double Disadvantages: A Study of Ethnic and Hukou Effects on Class Mobility in China (1996–2014)," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 5-19.
    16. Helene Snee & Haridhan Goswami, 2021. "Who Cares? Social Mobility and the ‘Class Ceiling’ in Nursing," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(3), pages 562-580, September.
    17. Yaojun Li, 2024. "Class and Ethno-Gender Differences in Education and Labour Market Position—An Intersectional Analysis of Ethnic Integration in the UK," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-22, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cormac O'Dea & Ian Preston, 2012. "The distributional impact of public spending in the UK," IFS Working Papers W12/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. repec:cep:sticas:/179 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Lindsey Macmillan, 2013. "The role of non-cognitive and cognitive skills, behavioural and educational outcomes in accounting for the intergenerational transmission of worklessness," DoQSS Working Papers 13-01, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    4. María Cervini-Plá, 2013. "Exploring the Sources of Earnings Transmission in Spain," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 204(1), pages 45-66, March.
    5. Bukodi, Erzsébet & Goldthorpe, John H. & Waller, Lorraine & Kuha, Jouni, 2015. "The mobility problem in Britain: new findings from the analysis of birth cohort data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60249, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Maribel Jimenez & Monica Jimenez, 2009. "La Movilidad Intergeneracional del Ingreso: Evidencia para Argentina," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0084, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    7. Paul Lambert & Kenneth Prandy & Wendy Bottero, 2007. "By Slow Degrees: Two Centuries of Social Reproduction and Mobility in Britain," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 12(1), pages 37-62, January.
    8. Lindsey Macmillan & Claire Tyler & Anna Vignoles, 2013. "Who gets the Top Jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates' access to high status professions," DoQSS Working Papers 13-15, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    9. Jo Blanden & Lindsey Macmillan, 2014. "Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?," CASE Papers case179, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    10. Maribel Jiménez, 2011. "Un Análisis Empírico de las No Linealidades en la Movilidad Intergeneracional del Ingreso. El caso de la Argentina," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0114, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    11. Azevedo, Viviane & Bouillon, César P., 2009. "Social Mobility in Latin America: A Review of Existing Evidence," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1656, Inter-American Development Bank.
    12. Jo Blanden, 2019. "Intergenerational income persistence," World of Labour, LISER, pages 176-176, January.
    13. Joanne Lindley & Stephen Machin, 2012. "The Quest for More and More Education: Implications for Social Mobility," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 265-286, June.
    14. Alice Goisis & Melissa Martinson & Wendy Sigle, 2019. "When richer doesn’t mean thinner: Ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and the risk of child obesity in the United Kingdom," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(23), pages 649-678.
    15. Manik Kumar & Nicky Naincy, 2020. "Revisiting the Gender Gap in Private Household Expenditure on Education in India: An Empirical Analysis," Paradigm, , vol. 24(2), pages 164-176, December.
    16. Corak, Miles & Curtis, Lori & Phipps, Shelley, 2010. "Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 4814, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Yang, Lin, 2017. "The relationship between poverty and inequality: concepts and measurement," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103491, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Jo Blanden, 2005. "Life Opportunities: The Evidence on the UK’s Declining Social Mobility," CEP Election Analysis Papers 004, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Zhang, Yingqiang & Eriksson, Tor, 2010. "Inequality of opportunity and income inequality in nine Chinese provinces, 1989-2006," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 607-616, December.
    20. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    21. Miles Corak & Patrizio Piraino, 2011. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Employers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 37-68, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:16:y:2011:i:3:p:28-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.