Intergenerational Class Mobility in Three Western European Societies: England, France and Sweden

TLDR

Comparative studies of intergenerational mobility in Western industrial societies have long been guided by Lipset and Zetterberg’s 1959 thesis that mobility patterns are broadly similar across countries, a claim that has faced increasing scrutiny over data quality and conceptual validity. The authors critique this thesis by highlighting four main methodological shortcomings: reliance on a crude two‑class manual/non‑manual classification, exclusion of agricultural sectors, potential differences in agricultural sector size, and limited consideration of vertical mobility distinctions.

Abstract

The starting point of almost all recent discussions of comparative (i.e. cross-national) social mobility rates has been the thesis advanced by Lipset and Zetterberg in 1959 that 'the overall pattern of social mobility appears to be much the same in the industrial societies of various Western countries'. ' Although Lipset and Zetterberg recognized that the data on which this thesis rested were often of a doubtful quality, they none the less maintained that 'the reservations and cautions which are in order do not invalidate this finding, which a number of other researchers in this area, such as Pitirim Sorokin, Robert Havighurst, Natalie Rogoff, David Glass, and Colin Clark, also agree is warranted....'2 Subsequent commentators have in fact been a good deal less sanguine about the possibility of deriving reliable comparative conclusions from the results of the national mobility inquiries that were available to Lipset and Zetterberg.3 But of perhaps still greater import are the several criticisms that have been levelled against their thesis on primarily conceptual grounds. Four such criticisms may be noted. (i) Lipset and Zetterberg operate for the most part (out of necessity) with the simple two-class model, based on the distinction between manual and non-manual occupational groupings; but the crossnational similarities that they discern in rates of (intergenerational) mobility between these two groupings may well disappear when a less crude basis for comparison is adopted.4 (ii) On the grounds that they are concerned with mobility within industrial society, Lipset and Zetterberg restrict their attention to mobility occurring within the non-agricultural sectors of the countries they cover; but this limitation is artificial and unduly favourable to their thesis since Western countries differ considerably in the size of their agricultural sectors, and in the rates at which these are contracting. Important cross-national differences may thus be expected in rates of mobility between agricultural and non-agricultural occupations.5 (iii) Lipset and Zetterberg regard their thesis as relating to 'vertical'