Social Mobility
Key Concepts
1. Auflage Dezember 2023
204 Seiten, Softcover
Fachbuch
Kurzbeschreibung
Social mobility has long been one of the central topics of sociology. It has been the subject of major theoretical contributions from the earliest generations of scholars, as well as being of persistent political interest and concern. Social mobility is frequently used as a key measure of fairness and social justice, given the central role that modern liberal democracies give to equality of opportunity. More pragmatically, policymakers often consider it a force for economic growth and social integration.
However, discussions of social mobility have increasingly become dominated by advanced statistical techniques, impenetrable to all but specialists in quantitative methods. In this concise and lucid book, Anthony Heath and Yaojun Li cut through the technical literature to provide an eye-opening account of the ideas, debates and realities that surround this important social phenomenon. Their book illuminates the major patterns and trends in rates of social mobility, and their drivers, in contemporary western and emerging societies, ultimately enabling readers to understand and engage with this perennially relevant social issue.
Social mobility has long been one of the central topics of sociology. It has been the subject of major theoretical contributions from the earliest generations of scholars, as well as being of persistent political interest and concern. Social mobility is frequently used as a key measure of fairness and social justice, given the central role that modern liberal democracies give to equality of opportunity. More pragmatically, policymakers often consider it a force for economic growth and social integration.
However, discussions of social mobility have increasingly become dominated by advanced statistical techniques, impenetrable to all but specialists in quantitative methods. In this concise and lucid book, Anthony Heath and Yaojun Li cut through the technical literature to provide an eye-opening account of the ideas, debates and realities that surround this important social phenomenon. Their book illuminates the major patterns and trends in rates of social mobility, and their drivers, in contemporary western and emerging societies, ultimately enabling readers to understand and engage with this perennially relevant social issue.
2. Landmarks: A Brief History of Mobility Research
3. Intergenerational Social Class Mobility in the Twenty-First Century
4. Intergenerational Income Mobility and the Great Gatsby Curve
5. Gender: Bringing Mobility Research into the Twenty-First Century
6. Race and Ethnicity: Entrenched Disadvantage?
7. Trends in Social Mobility: From the Medieval Period to the Twenty-First Century
8. Who Gets Ahead and Why?
9. Conclusion: Individual and Collective Consequences of Mobility
Alun Francis, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission
"Heath and Li are impressively comprehensive in their discussion of social mobility. They examine occupational change from the medieval period onwards, review insights generated by the latest studies using tax data and provide fresh statistics on the historically understudied issues of mobility by gender, race and migration status."
Jo Blanden, University of Surrey
"Social Mobility is a hugely important book on a topic that matters to us all. It is historical, comparative and interdisciplinary in its review of patterns and trends with due regard to gender and race and ethnicity. The discussion on who gets ahead and why is simply excellent."
Fiona Devine, University of Manchester
Yaojun Li is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester.
