Preprint of "Chinese perceive upward social mobility: How future mobility is influenced, but not limited by past mobility"

Perceptions of social mobility vary across countries. However, past studies have mostly focused on populations in Western developed countries. Little is known about perceptions of social mobility in non-Western developing countries. The current paper focuses on Chinese perceptions of social mobility using a large-scale nationally representative sample. We found that, overall, Chinese believed in upward social mobility. Moreover, different patterns of perceptions of social mobility were identified, which suggest that respondents experienced either upward or downward social mobility in the past, but all of them thought that they can move up in the future. Perceptions of social mobility were also linked to important socio-demographic and economic factors. We discuss these findings in relation to the Chinese economic context.

Bookseller Vasily Ivanovich Lagutkin (1883–1933): A Lishenets’ Biography Reconstruction

This article analyses the social and economic situation of the citizens deprived of suffrage for engagement in trade during the years of the NEP, with reference to a biography reconstruction of Vasily Ivanovich Lagutkin (1883–1933), an ordinary USSR citizen. The methodological basis of the research is the anthropological approach and a synthesis of macro- and microhistory. The main source of research is the personal file of a citizen who filed a petition to the election commission demanding that his right to vote lost for engagement in trade be restored. The specifics of Lagutkin’s biography are that for 34 years, he was professionally engaged in book trade both in private and in state organisations before and after 1917. The legalisation of private entrepreneurship in 1921 allowed him to start his own business. His trade continued until 1929 and, apparently, was successful, but the process of forced removal of private entrepreneurship from trade led Lagutkin to bankruptcy. Unemployment and high professional mobility in the following years, desperate but unsuccessful attempts to achieve restoration in his right to vote, progressive chronic illness and deterioration of health eventually led to his death in a psychiatric hospital in Perm at the age of 50. Being loyal to the Soviet authorities, expressing a desire to be useful to them, he could not reclaim his right to vote, since the decision to restore it was made on formal grounds which Lagutkin did not meet. The fate of a particular person in the transition era makes it possible to reflect the process of social construction of the “new person”, who, contrary to the declared goals, not only provoked downward social mobility and negative social selection, but in extreme cases led to the death of the individual.

Multidimensional, complex and contingent: Exploring international PhD students’ social mobility

This paper is a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) by three international PhD students from Bangladesh, Japan and Nepal who pursued (or who are currently pursuing) their studies in New Zealand. In contrast to previous research which largely advanced a simplistic, downward social mobility experience of international PhD students or highly skilled migrants in general, we argue that this experience is dynamic, complex and multidimensional in nature. In doing so, we turn to Bourdieu’s theory of capital. By focusing on less-direct economic resources (e.g. ethnicity, nationality, language and social networks), we explore the multidimensionality and convolution of our social mobility which stems from migration. Setting aside a narrative of adversity and downward social mobility among international PhD students, this paper emphasizes how we actively negotiated and dealt with shifting class identity and social mobility in the host countries.

Life-course socioeconomic status and lung function in adulthood: a study in the EPIPorto cohort

ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the association of life-course socioeconomic status (SES) with lung function during adulthood, by exploring the influence of life-course social mobility and of cumulative exposure to low SES.MethodsParticipants were 1458 individuals from EPIPorto study, a population-based cohort of Portuguese adults. The life-course SES was computed using participants’ paternal occupation and own occupation, resulting in four patterns: stable high, upward, downward, stable low. A cumulative life-course SES index was also calculated using the participants’ paternal occupation, own education and occupation. Lung function during adulthood was assessed with forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) percentages predicted (higher percentages are associated with better lung function). Linear regression models were used to estimate beta coefficients and 95% CI for the association of socioeconomic indicators and lung function.ResultsDisadvantaged SES from childhood to adulthood was associated with lower lung function (FEV1:−6.64%,−10.68;−2.60/FVC:−3.77%,−7.45;−0.08), and the greater the socioeconomic disadvantage, the lower the lung function (FEV1:−2.56%,−3.98;−1.15/FVC:−1.54%,−2.83;−0.24) among men, independently of marital status and behavioural factors. Among women, SES effects were only observed in those experiencing a stable low life-course SES at older ages (−5.15%,−10.20;−0.09). Men experiencing a downward social mobility presented the lowest lung function, but there was attenuation to the null after accounting for marital status and behavioural factors.ConclusionA life-course disadvantaged SES is an important predictor of lower lung function during adulthood. Downward social mobility was associated with the lowest lung function among men, although this association was mostly explained by behavioural factors.

Muslim Origins and Destinations

Patterns of racism in the Global North are correlated with the changing nature of globalization and its impact on individual economies, especially over the last four decades. The ‘left behind’ are groups in society who have faced considerable downward social mobility, with some becoming targeted by the mainstream and fringe right-wing groups who do this to release their pent up frustration towards the center of political and economic power. How this form of racism has evolved over time to focus on race, ethnicity, culture and now religion is explored in relation to the UK case, discussing the rise of Trump and the issue of Brexit as symptoms of a wider malaise affecting societies of the Global North. These forms of tribalism act to galvanize the right, combining racism with white supremacy, xenophobia and isolationism.

Private Benefits? External Benefits? Outcomes of Private Schooling in 21st Century Britain

Policy discourse surrounding Britain’s unusually well-resourced private schools surrounds their charitable status and their relationship with low social mobility, but informative evidence is scarce. We present estimates of the extent to which private and external benefits at age 25 are associated with attendance at private school in England in the 21st century. We find a weekly wage premium of 17 percent, and a 12 percentage point lower chance of downward social mobility. By contrast, private schooling is not significantly associated with participation in local voluntary groups, unpaid voluntary work, or charitable giving and fundraising; this finding casts doubt on claims that private schools deliver ‘public benefit’ in this way.

Unequal Youth Migrations: Exploring the Synchrony between Social Ageing and Social Mobility among Post-Crisis European Migrants

This article explores how symbolic boundaries between youth and adulthood shape experiences of upward and downward social mobility among EU migrants. Drawing on 56 biographical interviews with Italians who moved to England after the 2008 economic crisis, and focusing on three individual case studies, the article reveals that normative understandings of adulthood emerge as a central concern from participants’ biographical accounts, and that they mobilise unequal forms of cultural, economic and social capital to maintain a feeling of ‘synch’ between social ageing and social mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu and the sociology of adulthood, the article proposes the notion of synchrony to explore how tensions in the relationship between social ageing and social mobility shape experiences of migration. This allows for an innovative theoretical bridge between cultural class analysis, adulthood studies and migration studies, and for a better understanding of how intersections of class and age shape intra-European migrations.