Intergenerational class mobility in contemporary Britain: political concerns and empirical findings
Intergenerational class mobility in contemporary Britain: political concerns and empirical findings
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00165.x
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发表时间：
2007-12-01
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Jackson, Michelle
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Goldthorpe, John H.;Jackson, Michelle
近年来，英国的社会流动性已成为政治关注的中心话题，这主要是由于新工党努力将机会平等而不是条件平等作为政策重点。因此，流动的水平、模式和趋势问题直接关系到新工党政策分析的相关性，反过来可能对评估其在政府中的表现至关重要。然而，出于政治动机的社会流动性的讨论往往揭示了经验和分析issues.We提供了新的证据相关的社会流动性的评估-特别是代际阶级流动性-在当代英国通过跨队列分析的基础上的NCDS和BCS数据集，我们可以涉及到早期的横截面分析的基础上GHS。我们发现，与现在普遍认为的相反，没有证据表明绝对流动率正在下降;但是，对男子来说，向上和向下流动的平衡正在变得不那么有利。这主要是阶级结构变化的结果。男女的相对流动率基本上保持不变，尽管有可能表明长期流动的倾向在下降。我们得出结论，在当今的结构性条件下，不可能回到20世纪世纪中期普遍上升的向上流动率--除非这是通过朝着更平等的方向改变相对流动率来实现的，也就是说，更大的流动性。但这将导致向下流动率上升到完全相同的程度--这一结果显然不被专注于赢得选举“中间立场”的政治家所欣赏，也不太可能与他们志趣相投。
In Britain in recent years social mobility has become a topic of central political concern, primarily as a result of the effort made by New Labour to make equality of opportunity rather than equality of condition a focus of policy. Questions of the level, pattern and trend of mobility thus bear directly on the relevance of New Labour's policy analysis, and in turn are likely be crucial to the evaluation of its performance in government. However, politically motivated discussion of social mobility often reveals an inadequate grasp of both empirical and analytical issues.We provide new evidence relevant to the assessment of social mobility - in particular, intergenerational class mobility - in contemporary Britain through cross-cohort analyses based on the NCDS and BCS datasets which we can relate to earlier cross-sectional analyses based on the GHS. We find that, contrary to what seems now widely supposed, there is no evidence that absolute mobility rates are falling; but, for men, the balance of upward and downward movement is becoming less favourable. This is overwhelmingly the result of class structural change. Relative mobility rates, for both men and women, remain essentially constant, although there are possible indications of a declining propensity for long-range mobility.We conclude that under present day structural conditions there can be no return to the generally rising rates of upward mobility that characterized the middle decades of the twentieth century - unless this is achieved through changing relative rates in the direction of greater equality or, that is, of greater fluidity. But this would then produce rising rates of downward mobility to exactly the same extent - an outcome apparently unappreciated by, and unlikely to be congenial to, politicians preoccupied with winning the electoral 'middle ground'.