A concise idea about the concept of Social Mobility

1. Social Mobility
Shyamasree Saha
Ph.D. Scholar
NIT Agartala

2. What is Social Mobility
• Social mobility is defined as movement from
one class/status position to another
• There are 2 types:
Intra- generational – movement within one
generation e.g. a person moves from one
social class to another in the course of their
life time
Inter generational – movement between
generations e.g. a person’s father was a
Labourer and he is a teacher

3. Absolute & Relative Mobility
• Absolute mobility measures whether (and by
how much) living standards in a society have
increased—often measured by what
percentage of people have higher incomes
than their parents.
• Relative mobility refers to how likely children
are to move from their parents’ place in the
income distribution.

4. • The more absolute mobility there is, the
better off the population is than their parents,
and their children will consequently be
better off than them. Relative mobility refers
to the fluidity of a society. If your family is
poor, you have a decent chance of moving
up the relative income ladder. Because
relative mobility depends on one’s place in
the distribution, it is a zero-sum
phenomenon. In other words, if one person
moves up in relative terms, another by
definition must have moved down. In
contrast, absolute mobility is not zero-sum.

5. Types of Status
• Sociologists talk of two types of
status
Ascribed status is something you can’t
change. It is inherited by virtue of
class, gender, ethnic group.
Achieved Status is earned by your
individual effort.

6. Why Had Absolute Mobility
Increased?
1. Economic change – change in
occupational structure – growth of service
sector with better pay and better life
chances throughout the 60’s and 70’s whilst
traditional working class jobs had declined
2. Greater professional opportunities with the
expansion of state education, health and
welfare
3. Free secondary education since and made
more working class people more socially
mobile

7. Social mobility can be
classified as:
• Vertical mobility: The movement of individuals and groups
up or down the socioeconomic scale. Those who gain in
property, income, status, and position are said to be
upwardly mobile, while those who move in the opposite
direction are downwardly mobile.
• Horizontal mobility: The movement of individuals and
groups in similar socio-economic positions, which may be
in different work situations. This may involve change in
occupation or remaining in the same occupation but in a
different organization, or may be in the same organization
but at a different location.
• Lateral mobility: It is a geographical movement between
neighbourhoods, towns or regions. In modern societies
there is a great deal of geographical mobility. Lateral
mobility is often combined with vertical as well as
horizontal mobility

8. Upward and downward
mobility
• Upward social mobility is a change in a
person's social status resulting in that person
rising to a higher position in their status
system.
• However, downward mobility implies a
person's social status falls to a lower position
in their status system.
• Upward and downward social mobility are
not directly correlated with higher
education.