Social Mobility in Industrial Society

Seymour Martin Lipset, Reinhard Bendix, Seymour Lipset

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351306348
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Feminismus & feministische Theorie

In a careful analysis of the existing literature, the authors marshal an imposing array of evidence in support of their major argument that social mobility is an integral and continuing aspect of the process of industrialization. This classic volume continues to be a basic reference source in the field of occupational mobility.

Part One Social Mobility as a Characteristic of Societies

Chapter II Social Mobility in Industrial Societies

Widespread social mobility has been a concomitant of industrialization and a basic characteristic of modern industrial society. In every industrial country, a large proportion of the population have had to find occupations considerably different from those of their parents. During the nineteenth century, the proportion of the labor force in urban occupations increased rapidly, while the proportion in agriculture decreased.

In the twentieth century the West has been characterized by a rapid growth of trade and of service industries, as well as of bureaucracy in industry and government; more people have become employed in white-collar work, and the comparative size of the rural population has declined even more rapidly than before.¹ These changes in the distribution of occupations from generation to generation mean that no industrial society can be viewed as closed or static.

This apparently simple statement runs counter to widely held impressions concerning the different social structures of American and Western European societies. According to these impressions, America has an “open society” with considerable social mobility, but the countries of Western Europe (specifically England, France, Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, and the Scandinavian nations) have societies that are “closed,” in the sense that the children of workers are forced to remain in the social position of their parents. This judgment reflects earlier European beliefs. In the age of the French Revolution, America appeared to be a land free from traditional institutions and historical legacies: the country of the future, Hegel called it, where each man was master of his fate just as American democracy itself was the product of human reason. This notion has been reiterated in many analyses, all contrasting American and European societies.

For the most part these discussions deal with the differences between democratic and autocratic institutions; but they also express assumptions about contrasting patterns of social mobility. Sometimes the political and social aspects of the contrast between America and Europe have been linked as cause and effect: differences in political institutions and values have been cited as evidence for the assertion that the society of America is “open,” those of Europe “closed”; and the supposedly greater rate of social mobility in American society has been viewed as a major reason for the success of American democracy. For example, some fifty years ago Werner Sombart referred to the opportunities abundant in America as the major reason why American workers rejected the Marxist view that there is little opportunity under capitalism, while European workers accepted it because their opportunities were more restricted.² Such judgments as Sombart’s were, however, no more than inferences based on the general contrast between the American tradition which proclaimed the goal of opportunity for all and the European emphasis upon social stability and class differences.³ For as a matter of fact, it is not really clear whether the different political orientation of the American and European worker reflects different opportunities for social mobility or only a difference in their ethos!

The questions implicit in these alternative interpretations can be answered today with somewhat more assurance than was possible even two decades ago because of recent research in social mobility. In this chapter we attempt to summarize the findings available for a number of countries. Since our object is to assemble a large amount of empirical evidence, it will be useful to state at the outset that the overaU pattern of social mobility appears to be much the same in the industrial societies of various Western countries.⁴ This is startling—even if we discount the mistaken efforts to explain differences in political institutions by reference to different degrees of social mobility in the United States and in Western Europe. Further, although it is clear that social mobility is related in many ways to the economic expansion of industrial societies, it is at least doubtful that the rates of mobility and of expansion are correlated. Since a number of the countries for which we have data have had different rates of economic expansion but show comparable rates of social mobility, our tentative interpretation is that the social mobility of societies becomes relatively high once their industrialization, and hence their economic expansion, reaches a certain level.

Occupational Mobility

Before World War II, studies of social mobility were usually limited to investigations of the social origins of different occupational groups, employees of single factories, or inhabitants of single communities. Since World War II there have been at least fifteen different national surveys in eleven countries which have secured from representative samples of the population information that relates the occupations of the respondents to the occupations of their fathers. In addition, there have been a number of studies conducted in different cities of various countries. Taken together, these investigations permit the comparison of current variations in occupational mobility, as well as some estimate of differences during the past half century.

To make such comparisons and estimates is difficult. Few of the studies were made with the intention of facilitating the comparison of findings in different countries. Many of them employ systems of classifying occupations which cannot be compared with each other and the questions concerning the occupations of respondents and fathers are seldom similar. In order to use the results for a comparative analysis, we have reduced the occupational categories for most countries to the closest approximation of manual, nonmanual, and farm occupations. In presenting these materials, we make the assumption that a move from manual to nonmanual employment constitutes upward mobility among males. This assumption may be defended on the following grounds:

1. Most male nonmanual occupations have more prestige than most manual occupations, even skilled ones.⁵

2. Among males, white-collar positions generally lead to higher incomes than manual employment.⁶

3. Nonmanual positions, in general, require more education than manual positions.⁷

4. Holders of nonmanual positions, even low-paid white-collar jobs, are more likely than manual workers to think of themselves as members of the middle class and to act out middle-class roles in their consumption patterns.⁸

5. Low-level nonmanual workers are more likely to have political attitudes which resemble those of the upper middle class than those of the manual working class.⁹

It is true, of course, that many white-collar positions are lower in income and prestige than the higher levels of skilled manual work; however, most of these poorly paid white-collar positions are held by women, and male white-collar workers are often able to secure higher-level supervisory posts.¹⁰ Consequently, we believe that using the break between manual and nonmanual occupations as an indicator of low and high occupational status is justified whenever a dichotomous division of males in urban occupations is used. It is important to remember, however, that like all single-item indicators of complex phenomena this one will necessarily result in some errors; that is, some nonmanual positions which have lower status than some manual occupations will be classified in the high group though they should be in the low.¹¹

Postwar National Samples

Figure 2.1 presents the inter-generational shifts between manual and nonmanual occupations for adult males in six countries. The data indicate that a large minority of the sons of the industrial labor force achieve nonmanual positions. In France this group comprises 35 per cent of the sons, in Germany 26 to 30 per cent, in Switzerland 44 per cent, in Sweden 29 per cent, in Japan 33 per cent, and in the United States 31 to 35 per cent. A smaller minority in each country declines from nonmanual to manual positions, the percentages ranging from a low of 13 per cent to a high of 38 per cent.¹²

An obvious drawback of the studies from which these data are derived is that they depend upon a “common-sense” evaluation of occupational prestige: we have sought to correct for this deficiency by elaborating in detail the distinction between manual and non-manual occupations. However, several recent studies have attempted to give a firmer empirical foundation to the status of occupations by ascertaining first the esteem in which various occupations are held by a cross-section of the public; then, rates of social mobility were established with reference to these known prestige rankings, in which, for example, routine clerical jobs, are categorized as “low” even though they are nonmanual positions. The first such study was made by Professor David Glass of the London School of Economics.¹³ Its sophisticated methodology has inspired researchers in Denmark,¹⁴ Japan,¹⁵ and Sweden¹⁶ to proceed along similar lines. When completed, this series of studies will yield much detailed information about mobility rates. At present we can show two comparable summaries from Denmark and Great Britain, and a reasonably comparable study from Italy (see figure 2.2). We find here evidence of considerable upward mobility from the occupational categories of manual workers, farm workers, and routine nonmanual employees into farm-ownership and high-level nonmanual positions. In Denmark 22 per cent of them rise in this way; in Great Britain, 20 per cent; and in Italy, 8 per cent. Downward mobility between these categories appears to be greater: 44 per cent in Denmark, 49 per cent in Great Britain, and 34 per cent in Italy. The actual decline is probably not as great as shown by these figures. The classification employed in these studies, which grouped together positions of comparable prestige regardless of whether these were in the farm or nonfarm sectors of the economy, is, whatever its merits on other grounds, likely to exaggerate the rate of downward mobility, since sons of farmers who come from the rural middle class and go to the city are more likely to become manual workers than young men from the urban middle class.¹⁷ This consideration does not apply as much to Great Britain, which has a very small proportion of its population engaged in farming, but it does apply to agricultural countries like Denmark and Italy. A method of mobility analysis that is quite adequate for the former country might, therefore, be misleading in the latter countries.¹⁸

Fig. 2.1. Mobility between manual and nonmanual occupations and between agriculture and nonagriculture. Details do not always add to 100 per cent because of rounding. Source.—France: M. Bresard, “Mobilite sociale et dimension de la famille,” Population, 5 (1950): 553–566. Germany: (I) From data supplied by Dr. Erich Reigratski, Cologne, Germany, from his study Soziale Verflechtungen in der Bundesrepublik (Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1956); (II) From data supplied by In-stitut fur Demoskopie, Allensbach, Germany.

Source.—Germany (III): From data supplied by DIVO, Frankfurt A.M. Sweden: From data collected by H. L. Zetterberg, partly reported in “Sveriges fern Gangrullor,” Vecko-Journalen, 48 (1957): 40. Switzerland: Recalculated from information supplied by Professor Roger Girod.

Source.—United States: (I) Derived by Dr. Natalie Rogoff from data published by the National Opinion Research Center in “fobs and Occupations,” Opinion News, September i, 1947, pp. 3–33; (II) From data supplied bv the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan from their study of the 1952 presidential election. Japan: Research Committee on Stratification and Social Mobility of The Japanese Sociological Association, Social Stratification and Mobility (Tokyo: 1956; mimeographed), p. 13.

Fig. 2.2. For explanation see foot of facing page.

Mobility between occupations of high and low prestige. Occupations of high prestige are high levels of nonmanual occupations and farm owners, except in the high-prestige data for Italy, which include all nonmanual occupations and well-to-do peasants. Occupations of low prestige include routine nonmanual occupations, manual occupations, and farm occupations, except the low-prestige data for Italy, which include only manual occupations (including farm workers) and poor peasants. Source.—Great Britain: Calculated from David Glass, Social Mobility in Britain. Denmark: Computed from data furnished by Professor K. Svalastoga, Copenhagen, Denmark. Italy: L. Livi, “Sur la mesure de la mobilite sociale,” Population, 5(1950): 65–76.

A third method of determin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Foreword
• Preface
• I Introduction
• Part One Social Mobility as a Characteristic of Societies
• Part Two Social Mobility in a Metropolitan Community
• Part Three Causes, Consequences, and Dimensions of Social Mobility
• Appendix
• Index of Names
• Subject Index