This is second of a two-parter, and cannot be properly grasped on its own. In the last blog in this seemingly interminable series I drew on Bokadi and Goldthorpe’s excellent research to show the changes of absolute social mobility over the course of my lifetime (I was born in 1948). But as these authors make clear, there is a crucial, if often neglected, distinction to be drawn between absolute and relative social mobility.
In the proverbial nutshell, absolute mobility refers to ‘the proportions of individuals moving between different class positions’, and this can be shown in terms of percentages (see my last blog for my reservations about the concept of ‘class’ deployed here – I shall cavil no more!). Absolute rates are conditioned by two independent factors: first, by the structure, and changes in the structure, of the class positions between which mobility occurs; and second, by relative rates of class mobility.
So what of relative social mobility? This, Bukodi and Goldthorpe argue, is more difficult to define. Their initial stab is:
‘ … it may be sufficient (as a starting point) to think of relative rates as ones that ‘compare the chances’ of individuals of different class origins being found in different class destinations, and that thus reflect social processes which, as they operate within the class structure, generate the absolute rates that are actually observed. The class structure sets the context of class mobility; relative rates determine how, within this context, absolute rates are realised.’
The general picture painted by the data is of ‘constant social fluidity’ over the course of my lifetime. This confounds many a myth, most notably those postulating long-term increases or decreases in social mobility.
I cannot do any kind of justice here to the statistical subtlety of the analyses presented in Social Mobility and Education in Britain. I will have to resort to summarising some of the more striking findings and conclusions its authors reach. These pertain to politics and policy – and political and policy failure – as much as to the nature of the changes that have occurred. These can be listed as follows:
- Equality of opportunity, and its expression via social mobility, ‘appears to be systematically compromised by inequalities of condition’.
- There is a significant disconnect between political and policy approaches to and assessments of social mobility and sociological research. While the former targets inequalities of opportunity, the latter teaches us that it is inequalities of condition that needs targeting.
- Notwithstanding a significant postwar rise in the overall educational level of the British population, this has had ‘very little effect in weakening the association that exists between individuals’ class origins and their class destinations.’
- If education is going to play a role in promoting social mobility, the association between individuals’ social origins and their educational attainment must weaken.
- Rather than focusing on employers’ recruitment practices, focusing on their promotion practices might show a greater return: ‘that is, with the aim of discouraging credentialism that effectively blocks promotion from below for those without some, perhaps quite arbitrarily determined, level of qualification, and of encouraging the wider development of internal promotion programmes and associated training provision.’
- Political and policy identifications of social mobility ‘cold spots’ in different parts of the country often overlook ‘the possibility that in such areas working-class children, especially, may very well grow up with a fatalistic sense that people, or at least people of their kind, do in fact have little control over what happens to them in their lives, which then limits the extent to which they actively seek to translate such educational success as they may achieve into such labour market opportunities as may exist’ (the implicit reference here is to what psychologists call an ‘external locus of control’).
- Opportunities for lifelong learning provide ‘second chances’ not so much ‘for men and women whose disadvantaged social origins have had limiting effects on their educational attainment prior to labour market entry, but more for those of more advantaged origins who while in full-time education have not realised their advantages to the full extent that they might.’
- When Britain is compared to other (European) countries, what stands out is that the balance of the upward and downward components of the mobility rate is less favourable than in many other countries. In west-central European countries upward mobility still predominates over downward. Not so in Britain. Moreover the kind of remedial policies likely to be effective ‘will require political intervention of a kind likely to meet with strong opposition.’
So there has been no decline in absolute intergenerational mobility over the course of my lifetime (if treated in terms of class, as defined by NS-SEC). BUT, social ascent in Britain no longer predominates over social descent (a key point for me); and in this sense younger people now face less favourable mobility prospects than I and my babyboomer consociates did. ‘This change is primarily the result of the course of development of the class structure – in particular, of the slowing down of the previous rate of growth of the managerial and professional salariat.’
This precis does scant justice to what I regard as outstanding sociological research on the part of Budoki, Goldthorpe and colleagues (and there are always colleagues). But its my sociological autobiography, so I feel free to – and must – append a few comments at the risk of repeating myself.
The first may seem ungrateful to Bukadi and Goldthorpe, but it isn’t. Nothing in their study surprises me. Inequalities of condition, for me the issue of enduring capitalist class structures or relations, as defined in neo-Marxist rather than NS-SEC terms, ineluctably intrude into people’s lifeworlds in the guise of ladders or snakes. Post-1970s financial capitalism has altered this not one jot
Second, I must refer once again to the class/command dynamic and governing oligarchy. Capital, ever more concentrated in the hands of the capitalist executive in general and capital monopolists in particular, buys power from the power elite staddling the apparatus of the state to make policy in the interests of its further accumulation. It’s (very nearly ALL) down to the ruling class innit?
I was fortunate to pass the 11+ and to attend Worthing High School for Boys. My dad knew the significance of the 11+ while I just wanted to be with my friends. But I’ve written of this before in earlier fragments. Time to move on. But times have indeed changed for successor generations.