The Sociology Seminar: Thursdays

Time: 12:00 am – 13:15 pm
Date: 17th of May 2018
Place: Room 3105, ENSAE.
Marii PASKOV (Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Nuffield College,  Institute for New Economic Thinking – The Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford) – “Intergenerational class mobility in Europe: A new account”
Discutant : Louis-André VALLET (Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, CNRS et Sciences Po)
Abstract :
Comparative research into intergenerational social mobility has been typically restricted to a relatively small number of countries. The aim of this paper is to widen the perspective, and to provide an up-to-date account of rates of intergenerational class mobility for men across 30 European countries, using a newly-constructed comparative data-set based on the European Social Survey. Absolute mobility rates are found to vary quite widely, with national differences in the extent and pattern of class structural change. As regards relative rates, countries are best seen as falling into comparatively high and low fluidity sets, within which a high degree of cross-national commonality prevails. Further results indicate that country differences in relative rates play only a very limited part in accounting for country differences in absolute rates, confirming that the latter are primarily determined by class structural change. What in conclusion is suggested is that there is rather little cross-national variation in relative rates of class mobility that is of a systematic kind. Based on our findings on men, we propose a restatement of the FJH-hypothesis to the effect that in societies with a capitalist market economy, a nuclear family system and a liberal-democratic polity, a limit exists to the extent to which relative rates of class mobility can be equalized, which countries may move closer to or recede from.
Co-auteurs : Erzsébet Bukodi, Marii Paskov, Brian Nolan
Organizers :
Marine HADDAD, Nicolas ROBETTE, Sander WAGNER (Laboratoire de sociologie quantitative – CREST)
Sponsors :
CREST