How Many Classes Are There?

To examine the elements of social mobility, especially the intergenerational change in social position, requires the establishment of an appropriate schema that captures social class position across generations. This chapter summarizes the major debates surrounding the definition of social class, with a specific focus on class in the Indian context. So far there is little consistent effort to map the possible classes in Indian society. This chapter discusses the conceptualisation of class and its operationalisation in terms of a class schema. The focus is on a possible ‘objective’ measure of class in the Indian context.

How Mobile Is India?

Social mobility includes absoulte mobility, that is, raw numbers of people who move up, down, or remain stable; and relative mobility, that is, mobility controlling for structural change. This chapter draws out the importance of both types of mobility. Further, the intriguing pattern for women’s mobility, where women display more stability than men intergenerationally, contrary to research in most of the world, is deconstructed. While we observe an enduring trend, preceding ‘liberalization’, of the expansion of the higher salariat, and a retrenchment in agriculture leading to some amount of net upward mobility in absolute terms, we also observe low levels of social fluidity which provide an indicator of the unequal opportunity structures in Indian society.

The Indian Context

To explore the Indian context for the study of mobility, the changes in the Indian economy, especially with regard to workforce participation rates, industrial distribution of the workforce, and others, have been outlined in this chapter. The presence and persistence of caste and its impact on occupational attainment, and in turn social mobility, is discussed. This chapter looks in detail at the participation of women in employment in India given the significance of the impact of their participation on social mobility opportunities. Emphasis has been laid on the interaction between class, caste, gender and locality, and the possible repurcussions this has on mobility, providing a rich contextual backdrop to the book.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the definitions, concepts, theoretical paradigms, and approaches to social mobility research. From the time that Pitrim Sorokin wrote the first treatise on social mobility in 1927, the area of mobility studies in sociology has grown substantially. This has led, at times, to heated debates on the most appropriate way to measure and capture mobility. This chapter compares and contrasts the two key approaches to the study of mobility, that is, the status attainment approach and the class mobility approach. It focusses on gender, caste, and locality for the study of social mobility patterns in India and also provides a review of previous studies. The chapter ends with a thematic outline of the book as well as a discussion on the methods employed.

Mobility Mechanisms

The relative and absolute rates of mobility are significant in their own regard, however, it leaves open the question of the ‘processual effects’ of industrialization, or in other words what are the drivers of this mobility. This chapter studies the impact of education on social mobility. The major question posed here is whether education acts as a mediator of mobility or not. Or, are the social origin or inherited characteristics (caste and class) the primary determining factor where the chances of social mobility are concerned? Finally, whether the impact of education varies by community. We find that education mediates the origin-destination relation, with those with higher levels of education able to secure more chances of upward mobility. The critical role of caste and gender is underlined.

Cutting Through

This chapter brings out the influence of caste on social class mobility and analyses in detail the association between caste and social class in India. While theories of social change posit a decline in the impact of caste on social mobility over time, this chapter questions whether we see evidence of this at the national level. More crucially has the association between caste and class declined? And, has the relative importance of caste on achieveing a specific occupation, and hence social mobility, also declined overtime? In light of debates on affirmative action, this chapter asks whether certain castes find it harder to take advantage of upward class mobility chances, and conversely whether some castes are cushioned from downward mobility chances.

Conclusions

This chapter draws together the main findings of the research reported in each individual chapter providing an overview of mobility patterns, trends, and inequalities in India for both women and men over time. It also discusses the findings on caste and mobility in light of the debates on reservation policies in India, as well as the structure of these patterns across rural-urban locality. As an industrializing country, India displays some patterns of structural change commensurate with its level of industrialization. However, the existence of a large agrarian sector along with a rapidly growing service sector place India in a unique position. The repurcussions of the type of structural change on social mobility is explored and a broader picture of social change is presented.