Trends in Intergenerational Class Mobility in England and Wales, 1972-1983

Abstract

Results on trends in intergenerational class mobility in England and Wales obtained from the Nuffield inquiry of 1972 are updated to 1983 on the basis of material derived from the British General Election Study of that year. Overall, a marked continuity in trends in absolute mobility rates and in associated patterns of social fluidity and structural change is revelaed. The most important new development in the context of far more adverse economic conditions is for the mobility chances of men of working-class origins to polarise - a continuing improvement in opportunities for upward mobility into service-class positions going together with increasing risks of downward mobility via unemployment. The results reported are shown to be ones that do not readily accord with current theories, whether Marxist or liberal, of the development of the class structures of modern western societies.