How Internal Hiring Affects Occupational Stratification

When employers conduct more internal hiring, does this facilitate upward mobility for low-paid workers or does it protect the already advantaged? To assess the effect of within-employer job mobility on occupational stratification, we develop a framework that accounts for inequality in both rates and payoffs of job changing. Internal hiring facilitates advancement for workers without strong credentials, but it excludes workers at employers with few good jobs to advance into. Analyzing Current Population Survey data, we find that when internal hiring increases in a local labor market, it facilitates upward mobility less than when external hiring increases. When workers in low-paid occupations switch jobs, they benefit more from switching employers than from moving jobs within the same employer. One-third of this difference is due to low-paid workers isolated in industries with few high-paying jobs to transfer into. An occupationally segregated labor market therefore limits the benefits that internal hiring can bring to the workers who most need upward mobility.

“So What If I Am Laz?” Irony, Mockery and Humor in Ethnic Integration and Insubordination

This study argues that the ethnic Laz in Turkey resort to irony, humor and mockery to cope with and negotiate the stereotypes, ethnic humor and mockery they encounter in their interactions with outsiders. The trope of irony, humor and mockery have enabled the Laz to navigate the national and regional hierarchies and reproduce their symbolic boundaries regardless of the common and ardent appropriation of Turkishness. In so doing, the Laz can more subtly challenge the official ideology of uniformity. While the public use of Lazuri is still considered a threat to the negotiated boundaries of Lazness, new instruments present creative displays of their ethnic capital which do not contradict present day principles of Turkish nationalism, and offer a legitimate sharing of intimacy without embarrassment. The Laz, like other non-Turkish Muslim peoples of the Black Sea region, abandoned their politically threatening ethnic distinctions, appropriated the capital of Turkishness through their performances, and coped with mockery and stigma by ironizing differences and negotiating, trivializing or selectively appropriating the stereotypes imposed upon them. Ironically, they have “out-performed” ethnic Turks in certain ways, in their search for acceptance as Turks, achieving upward mobility and avoiding forms of stigmatization.

Informalities, Volatility, and Precarious Social Mobility in Urban Slums

As developing countries rapidly urbanize, the number of people living in ‘slums’—neighbourhoods lacking formal property rights and basic services—continues to increase. Whether slum residents will ultimately share in the benefits of the cities they help build or will remain trapped in poverty is not well understood. We review empirical evidence on the potential for social mobility in today’s urban slums in order to assess prospects for upward mobility in cities of the Global South, finding evidence for limited levels of upward mobility and high levels of volatility. We then discuss the substantial public sector interventions that accompanied urbanization in the Global North. We argue that urbanization will not automatically improve prospects for mobility for the urban poor. Instead, it will be critical to implement appropriately nuanced interventions to improve opportunities for the billions residing in today’s and tomorrow’s slums.

The Impermanence of Moves: Return and Onward Migration

Several, independent data analyses demonstrate that neither rural-urban nor urban-rural migrations are as permanent as one normally assumes; return is common within a few years. Return from rural-urban migration is more prevalent among men and the less-well-educated and is strongly associated with rejoining a spouse. Age of return to a rural area is bimodal, peaking around age 20 and among children; no evidence of return upon retirement is apparent. Across countries, more than half return to a district other than their origin. Returned migrants’ rural incomes are greater than those of people who remained at home, both on average and among measurably equivalent groups. Upward mobility in income in towns is affirmed, particularly for the less-well-educated. Seasonal migration is more common among men and the better educated and by individuals, not joint families. Seasonal migration in India as well as step and onward migration elsewhere are not as common as is popularly claimed.

Globalization and the Changing Geography of Social Life in Rural Kerala

This article contributes to the study of globalization and social change in rural Kerala by examining the historical trajectories of educational, occupational and spatial mobility among three communities—Syrian Christians, Ezhavas and Pulayas—in the village of Kavakad, Kerala. It addresses the involvement of each community in transnational migration and related mobilities away from the village. The article is based on quantitative data collected through an intergenerational family survey and semi-structured interviews conducted in Kavakad. The research reveals that while the dominant Syrian Christian community gained most from transnational migration, all three communities benefited from forms of upward mobility. However, our findings also confirm that, despite various forms of mobility, longstanding social inequalities between Syrian Christians, Ezhavas and Pulayas in the village persist. The article highlights the ways in which spatial mobility is a key factor in shaping the relative social mobility of each community. As such, it contributes to our understanding of the reproduction of inequality in contemporary Kerala and, in particular, of the ways in which historically accumulated resources and community networks enabled Syrian Christians to turn transnational migration into lasting forms of upward mobility. It also suggests a need for alternative development interventions at the local level to support the spatial mobility of marginalized rural communities.