scholarly journals Better times to come? Intergenerational class mobility of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nhat An Trinh ◽  
Erzsebet Bukodi
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Relative Mobility ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Fluidity

This study examines over-time trends in intergenerational class mobility based on cohorts of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s. We calculate absolute and relative mobility rates, separately for men and women, using the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2016), the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2016), and the UK Labour Force Survey (2014-2017). Regarding absolute mobility, we find marked country differences in upward and downward rates. In Germany, downward mobility decreased, while upward mobility rose. In the UK, downward mobility increased, while upward mobility declined. We provide evidence that these differences can be linked to contrasting changes in the distribution of origin and destination classes. Regarding relative mobility, striking country similarities appear. For both countries, we observe increases in social fluidity for respondents entering the labour market during the 1950s and 1960s that cease to continue for cohorts thereafter. Comparisons between adjacent cohorts do not provide evidence that social fluidity follows cyclical developments of the economy or shorter-term volatilities in the labour market.

scholarly journals Is London Really the Engine-Room? Migration, Opportunity Hoarding and Regional Social Mobility in the UK

2017 ◽  
Vol 240 ◽  
pp. R58-R72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Lindsey Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Engine Room ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time ◽  
Domestic Migrants

In this paper we explore for the first time regional differences in the patterning of occupational social mobility in the UK. Drawing on data from Understanding Society (US), supported by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), we examine how rates of absolute and relative intergenerational occupational mobility vary across 19 regions of England, Scotland and Wales. Our findings somewhat problematise the dominant policy narrative on regional social mobility, which presents London as the national ‘engine-room’ of social mobility. In contrast, we find that those currently living in Inner London have experienced the lowest regional rate of absolute upward mobility, the highest regional rate of downward mobility, and a comparatively low rate of relative upward mobility into professional and managerial occupations. This stands in stark contrast to Merseyside and particularly Tyne and Wear where rates of both absolute and relative upward mobility are high, and downward mobility is low. We then examine this Inner London effect further, finding that it is driven in part by two dimensions of migration. First, among international migrants, we find strikingly low rates of upward mobility and high rates of downward mobility. Second, among domestic migrants, we find a striking overrepresentation of those from professional and managerial backgrounds. These privileged domestic migrants, our results indicate, are less likely to experience downward mobility than those from similar backgrounds elsewhere in the country. This may be partly explained by higher educational qualifications, but may also be indicative of a glass floor or opportunity hoarding.

scholarly journals Have British Jews fully assimilated in the UK Labour Market?

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Nabil Khattab
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Occupational Attainment ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Labour Force Survey ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Majority Group ◽  
The Uk

<p class="pagecontents"><span lang="EN-GB">This paper analyses the patterns of occupational attainment and earnings among the Jewish community in Britain using UK Labour Force Survey data (2002-2010). The findings suggest that although British-Jews cannot be distinguished from the majority main stream population of British-White in terms of their overall occupational attainment and earnings, it seems that they have managed to integrate through patterns of self-employment and concentration in the service sector economy, particularly in banking and financial services. It is argued that this self-employment profile is a Jewish strategy used to minimise dependency on majority group employers and by doing so to helping to escape any religious penalties.</span></p>

scholarly journals Education and intergenerational social mobility in the US and four European countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Breen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Structural Change ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Educational Expansion ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Fluidity ◽  
Second World

Abstract I draw on the findings of a recently completed comparative research project to address the question: how did intergenerational social mobility change over cohorts of men and women born in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, and what role, if any, did education play in this? The countries studied are the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Notwithstanding the differences between them, by and large they present the same picture. Rates of upward mobility increased among cohorts born in the second quarter of the century and then declined among those born later. Among earlier born cohorts, social fluidity increased (that is, the association between the class a person was born into and the class he or she came to occupy as an adult declined) and then remained unchanged for those born after mid-century. The association between class origins and educational attainment followed much the same trend as social fluidity. This suggests that growing equalization in education may have contributed to the increase in social fluidity. In our analyses we find that this is so, but educational expansion also led to greater fluidity in some countries. There is also a strong link between upward mobility and social fluidity. Upward mobility was mostly driven by the expansion of higher-level white-collar jobs, especially in the 30 years after the end of the Second World War. This facilitated social fluidity because people from working class and farming origins could move into the service or salariat classes without reducing the rate at which children born into those classes could remain there. Educational expansion, educational equalization, and rapid structural change in the economies of the US and Europe all contributed to greater social fluidity among people born in the second quarter of the twentieth century. For people born after mid-century, rates of downward mobility have increased: however, despite the lack of further educational equalization and less pronounced structural change, social fluidity has remained unchanged.

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

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaojun Li ◽  
Fiona Devine
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Time Period ◽  
General Household Survey

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.

scholarly journals Job separation rates of immigrants and natives in the UK during the Great Recession

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 1036-1054
Author(s):  
Dafni Papoutsaki
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the probability of job separations of immigrants and natives in the UK before and during the economic crisis of 2008. Design/methodology/approach A mixed proportional hazard duration model with a semi-parametric piecewise constant baseline hazard is used on a data sample of inflows into employment. Findings It is found that the crisis increased the probability of exits to unemployment for all groups, while immigrants from the new countries of the European Union seemed to have the lowest hazard towards unemployment even after controlling for their demographic and labour market characteristics. More specifically, even when we account for the fact that they tend to cluster in jobs that are most vulnerable to the business cycle, they are still less likely to exit dependent employment than natives. However, this migrant group is adversely affected by the crisis the most. Research limitations/implications Possible implications of out-migration of the lower performers are discussed. Originality/value This paper makes use of the panel element of the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey, and uses duration analysis on the individual level to assess the labour market outcomes of natives and immigrants in the UK.

scholarly journals How can Europe tackle the three employment challenges: the digital, the climate and the pandemic transition?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-18
Author(s):  
Kenneth Abrahamsson ◽  
Allan Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Content Quality ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Transition Mechanism ◽  
To Come ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Climate Transition

Abstract Never before in modern times has Working Europe been faced with such a fundamental and far-reaching transition pressure. We are in the beginning of two powerful transition processes, the innovation-driven digital transformation, and the policy-driven climate transition. On the top of these processes we are now facing a pandemic-driven restructuring of important sectors of our economies. Are our labour market regimes and policies fit for these challenges? Are we finally witnessing “the end of work” and an extended period of being Left Behind? Or can we build up capacities to deal with these three fundamental challenges? In this paper the authors discuss these issues based on the most recent labour market research and statistics and present some preliminary conclusions on the new forms of transition mechanism, and the scaling-up of European and national labour market transition policies as part of the Next Europe recovery strategy. It is not easy to predict the content, quality and volume of a skill development needs caused by the triple challenge of climate change, digitalisation, and Covid-19. We suggest, however, that the EU Commission should develop a transition capacity indicator corresponding to at least one fifth of the labour force and to recommend new springboards and bridges to work for the next years to come. We are convinced that this is the most productive and profitable investment Europe can do. Keywords: Digitalisation, climate change, green deal, Covid-19, just transition, skill gap

scholarly journals COVID-19 Pandemic and Gender Inequality in the Labour Market in the UK

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Razzu
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Labour Force Participation ◽  
Distributional Consequences ◽  
Employment Gap ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk

Although the movement towards gender equality in the labour market has slowed in recent decades, a long-term view over the 20th century shows the significant narrowing of the gender employment gap in the UK, a result of the increases in women’s labour force participation and employment combined with falling attachment to the labour force among men. It is too early to assess with precision the extent to which these patterns will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic but emerging evidence and informed speculation do suggest that there will be important distributional consequences. Various studies, produced at an unprecedented rate, are pointing out that the effects of Covid-19 are not felt equally across the population; on the contrary labour market inequalities appear to be growing in some dimensions and there are reasons to believe that they will grow more substantially in the medium term.

scholarly journals Social Mobility from a Comparative Perspective Between Europe and Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 203-234
Author(s):  
Sandra Fachelli ◽  
Ildefonso Marqués-Perales ◽  
Marcelo Boado ◽  
Patricio Solís
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Data Processing ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Relative Mobility ◽  
The Family ◽  
Social Fluidity ◽  
Invariance Theory ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis chapter presents a review of the analysis of social mobility in the international sphere (Europe and Latin America), with a particular focus on the partner countries of the INCASI network. To date, few studies have linked nations whose economic and social aspects are so dissimilar.As is usual in the specialized literature, the relationship between social origin and class destination is addressed. This is done by noting the comparisons made across the geographical areas. We review the analyses that have been made of the evolution of social fluidity as well as the distance between social classes within each country and the comparisons made between them.We compare the main theories that have inspired the study of social mobility to date: modernization theory, which predicts an increase in relative mobility rates, and invariance theory, which postulates the constancy of social fluidity. Special attention is devoted to the role played by the family, the state and the market in late industrialized countries.We study the difficulties for social change, i.e. upward mobility from one class to another, as well as the likelihood of reproduction in comparative terms. To do so, we link these mechanisms with the AMOSIT model. The advances in methodology, techniques, theory and data processing are highlighted.

The Puzzle of Retirement and Early Retirement

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Harper ◽  
Peter Laslett
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Healthy Life ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Pension Systems ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Changing Attitudes

This chapter focuses on early retirement, explaining why at a time of increasing longevity, and in particular healthy and active longevity, there is a continual withdrawal from the labour force of men and women who have not yet reached the formal age of retirement. While the expectation of a healthy life has been steadily growing, between 1950 and 1995 the estimated average age in the UK of the transition from economic employment to economic inactivity by older workers fell from 67.2 to 62.7 years for men and from 63.9 to 59.7 years for women. There are three main explanations for this change. First, economists have taken the view that there exist within most national pension systems incentives to retire. Second, sociologists argued that changes within the workplace and labour market have forced employees to withdraw. Finally, there are the changing attitudes of the workers and a growing internalisation of retirement as an extended period of funded leisure and consumption.

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