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Sources and causes of social mobility

I. Structural factors:

1. - change in the occupational structure

- agrarian industrial post-industrial (farming) (manufacturing) (service sector)

- with industrialization and mechanization manual jobs decline unskilled jobs taken over by machines technical and high skill jobs require specialized skills and knowledge

- manual labourers and farmers unskilled and less educated witnessed downward mobility

- For example, in USA in 1900 agricultural workers constituted 40% of labour force . But, in 2000, agricultural workers constitute only 4% of the total labour force.

- in the age of globalization international competition even well educated managers, technicians and other professionals witnessed downward mobility because of outsourcing of jobs (BPOs)

- but at the same time, industrialization and the growth of service sector has led to the diversification of the occupational structure leading to the creation of numerous high status jobs

2.

Expansion of industrial economy

Government sponsored mass education programmes

- such as National Literacy Mission, etc. opening up various industrial training institutes (ITIs) for specialized knowledge and vocational skills

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3. Lower birth rate in higher classes

II. Individual factors (high education, talent, achievement motivation, hard work, etc.)

- as economy expands, more higher positions are created

- but, due to low birth rate, self-recruitment in higher classes is not sufficient enough

- as a result, people from lower classes get an opportunity to occupy higher positions so created.

Some personal characteristics are achieved, such as education, talent, motivation and hard work. Others are ascribed, such as family background, race and gender. As has been suggested, both achieved and ascribed qualities have a hand in determining the degree of mobility an individual or group attain in a given society. But the popular belief in equal opportunity would lead us to expect career success to be attained through achievement more than ascription. Is achievement then, really the more powerful determining force in upward mobility?

According to most sociological studies, achievement may appear on the surface to be the predominant factor, but it is actually subject to the influence of ascription. It is well known that the more education people have, the more successful they are in their careers. But the amount of education people have is related to their family background. Thus, compared with children from blue-collar families, children from white-collar families can be expected to get more education and then have a better chance for career mobility. [Case studies: Jencks et al. (1994), Erickson and Jonsson (1996)]

III. Social factors

1. Government policy of redistribution and social justice

- for example, land reforms, reservation policy, etc.

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- has facilitated upward mobility of socially and economically weaker sections of society in India, such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes, etc.

2. Collective mobilization

- in wake of the democratization of societies

- dalit movement, backward class movement (eg. Yadavs of UP and Bihar), peasant movements, etc.