Period changes in men’s class reproduction in Scotland, 1974-2001

Cristina Iannelli

University of Edinburgh

ESRC project “Education and Social Mobility in Scotland in the 20th Century”

Aims of the project: to provide an up-to-date study of social mobility

in Scotland to investigate the role played by education in

the process of social mobility between generations

Background to the project: Payne, 1987; Goldthorpe, 1987; Erikson and

Goldthorpe, 1992, Breen and Luijkx, 2004

ESRC project “Education and Social Mobility in Scotland in the 20th Century”

Data and methodology:2001 Scottish Household Survey, 1999

British Household Panel Survey, 1974 Scottish Mobility Study

Mobility tables, odds ratios, log-linear models and logistic regression

Period changes in social mobility

The main aim of this paper:To analyse changes in social mobility

patterns (absolute and relative) across the whole of the 20th century

Data from the 1974 SMS and the 2001 SHS

The 1974 Scottish Mobility Study

Cross-sectional survey of men aged 20-64 resident in Scotland and Inner Isles

Our sample: men born between 1910 and 1949 (at most 4079 cases)

The 2001 Scottish Household Survey

Large cross-sectional survey commissioned by the Scottish Executive in 1998 and running annually

The 2001 module of questions on parental occupation

Our sample: men born between 1937 and 1976 (at most 3633 cases)

The EGP class schema

The 5-class schema (collapsed version of the 7-class schema): Class I-II: Service class Class III: Routine non-manual

workers Class IV: Petty bourgeoisie Class V-VI: Skilled workers Class VII: Non-skilled workers

Main methods

Mobility tables to measure absolute mobility

Loglinear models to measure relative mobilityUniform Difference (Unidiff) model (Erikson

and Goldthorpe 1992) to examine changes in the strength of the OD association between 1974 and 2001

Some descriptive statistics

Distributions of men aged 25-64 by class of origin and destination (%) 1974 2001 Origin Destination Origin Destination Class I -II 9.8 21.8 23.8 41.7

Class III 7.1 11.8 15.4 9.4

Class IV 12.6 7.7 10.3 7.6

Class V and VI 39.1 29.3 23.0 25.5

Class VII 31.4 29.4 27.6 15.8

No. of cases 4079 3789 3633 3045

Absolute mobility

Absolute mobility rates among men aged 25-64 (%) 1974 2001 Upward mobility 39.8 43.4

Immobility 36.3 33.5

Downward mobility 23.9 23.1

No. of cases 3646 2740

Relative mobility

Results of the log-linear models testing the OD association at two time points Chi-square Df Sig. Model 1: O+D+P 1928.1 40 0.0000

Relative mobility (cont.)

Results of the log-linear models testing the OD association at two time points Chi-square Df Sig. Model 1: O+D+P 1928.1 40 0.0000

Model 2: OP+DP 998.3 32 0.0000

Relative mobility (cont.)

Results of the log-linear models testing the OD association at two time points Chi-square Df Sig. Model 1: O+D+P 1928.1 40 0.0000

Model 2: OP+DP 998.3 32 0.0000

Model 3: OP+DP+OD 49.3 16 0.0000

Relative mobility (cont.)

Results of the log-linear models testing the OD association at two time points Chi-square Df Sig. Model 1: O+D+P 1928.1 40 0.0000

Model 2: OP+DP 998.3 32 0.0000

Model 3: OP+DP+OD 49.3 16 0.0000

Unidiff model 4: OP+DP+OD changes over period

25.3 15 0.0457

Unidiff parameters 1.000 (1974) 0.7172 (2001)

A long term perspective

The paper relies on cross-sectional data from only two time points

The two datasets were combined to create a time series of successive birth-cohorts constructed as one year moving averages (Yaish 2004)

Mobility rates - Men aged 25-64 by birth-cohorts

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

1910-1949

1912-51

1914-53

1916-55

1918-57

1920-59

1922-61

1924-63

1926-65

1928-67

1930-69

1932-71

1934-73

1936-75

Total mobility

Upward mobility

Downward mobility

Changes in the strength of the OD association across birth-cohorts (Unidiff parameter estimates)

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.85

0.9

0.95

1

1.05

1.1

1.15

1.2

1910

-49

1911

-50

1912

-51

1913

-52

1914

-53

1915

-54

1916

-55

1917

-56

1918

-57

1919

-58

1920

-59

1921

-60

1922

-61

1923

-62

1924

-63

1925

-64

1926

-65

1927

-66

1928

-67

1929

-68

1930

-69

1931

-70

1932

-71

1933

-72

1934

-73

1935

-74

1936

-75

1937

-76

Conclusions

In The Constant Flux (1992) Scotland was one of the least fluid societies in Europe

Most recent data indicate that patterns of social mobility in Scotland are not different from the rest of Great Britain and other European countries

This paper shows that, differently from the rest of Great Britain, social fluidity has increased in Scotland

However, this has occurred at a very low pace and over a long period of time