Intergenerational Class Mobility in Industrial and Post-Industrial Societies: Towards a General Theory
A large body of often rather complex findings on intergenerational social mobility has by now come into existence but theoretical development has not kept pace. In this paper, focusing specifically on class mobility in European nations and the US, we aim, first of all, to identify the main empirical regularities that have emerged from research, making the now standard distinction between absolute and relative mobility. Next, we review existing theories of mobility, which in fact antedate a good deal of this research, and note the main shortcomings that have become evident in these theories, but also elements of them that might still be built upon. We then set out our own theory of intergenerational class mobility and seek to show how it can account for the empirical regularities previously described, while also pointing both to additional evidence that supports it and to ways in which it is open to further empirical test. Finally, we consider some more general implications of the theory and, on this basis, venture some – conditional – predictions on the future of class mobility in more advanced societies. We do not suppose that our theory is in any sense a ‘final’ one but believe that it improves our understanding of research findings in the field as they currently stand and that further research aimed at its critical evaluation would prove profitable.