Research in Social Stratification and Mobility最新文献

This article analyses the effects of occupational mobility on biological well-being from a long-term perspective. While it is well known that occupation and heights were closely related in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, our analysis shows that variations in the occupational status of parents and social mobility relative to grandparents also help to explain the evolution of biological well-being in subsequent generations. Drawing on data on height and socio-economic status for almost 4000 individuals born between 1835 and 1959, this paper analyzes the effects of occupational changes on statures over three generations in a period when opportunities for access to land improved in rural Spain. Our results indicate that (1): there was a strong positive relationship between fathers' occupational status and children's biological well-being; (2) improvements in the parental socioeconomic status had a rapid impact on the height of the male children if this improvement occurred during the period when the sons were growing up, and (3) the social mobility of parents in relation to grandparents also had a noticeable effect on the height of their children.

Do teachers consider not only an individual student's performance and abilities but also the number of motivated peers in a class as a frame of reference when deciding whether or not to recommend them for academic high school? Given the limited number of places available in such schools in the short run, we argue that a student's chances of being recommended depend on the number of competitors and especially whether they already secured a recommendation for themselves. Using choice experiments presenting groups of three to five students to pre-service secondary school teachers in Switzerland, we show how the individual probability for a recommendation for the most advantageous school track depends on the size of the reference group. Furthermore, individual chances are especially affected by the number of other students in the group that the teacher deems fit for academic high school: The higher the share of competitors in the reference group with a recommendation, the smaller the individual chances. These effects are robust across samples, methods, and with respect to alternative mechanisms.

This essay provides a personal and material account of Robert D. Mare's contributions to neighborhood research.

The Argentinean case –given an early modernization and the singularity of its reversal of development- is instructive about the role of education on intergenerational class mobility. We propose a wide historical analysis of time variations in intergenerational class mobility and the role of education over different periods in urban Argentina –specifically in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, from 1960 to 2017. This is the first time a long-term social mobility study has been conducted in Argentina. We analyse intergenerational social mobility according to EGP class scheme, using absolute rates, log-linear models, and long-term counterfactual analysis. Results show a social fluidity process for men but not for women. The counterfactual analysis exhibits that most social fluidity among men was due to a reduction in the direct class origin-class destination effect. No evidence of effects of educational expansion or educational equalization is observed. This presence of moderate social fluidity has not been linked to a modernization process which expands vertical upward mobility. Instead, it took place in a context of deindustrialization and the decline of the skilled working class.

This review summarizes Rob Mare's contributions to the study of the demographic pathways of inequality and social mobility. Mare proposed a groundbreaking research agenda in this area. His vision was to advance research on social inequality and intergenerational social mobility by incorporating the many demographic mechanisms that shape population characteristics. Together with his students, Mare pushed these ideas forward throughout his career, and he inspired the work of many other stratification scholars.

Rob Mare's research elaborated and deepened the "basic model" of social stratification articulated by Blau and Duncan. Mare modeled education, the central explanatory variable in the Blau-Duncan model, as a series of transitions from lower to higher achievement. This approach made the model more realistic and helped focus substantive attention on high school dropout. He, in collaboration with Winship, added unemployment to the stratifying outcomes. With several collaborators, mostly students, he added fertility and mortality to the model. Most recently he articulated a multigenerational model that applied the demography to dynasties and challenged researchers to think more about systems aspects of stratification. In a unique career, Rob Mare expanded the “old school” one-sex, two-generation model in all dimensions. He left us with a two-sex, multigenerational model that addresses changes in both the stratification system and fundamental demography.

Robert Mare introduced the education transitions model in his 1977 dissertation, and new analyses using the method are published every year. In order to grasp the importance of Mare’s contribution, it is necessary to first set the context that forged a need for his approach. Key to that context are the methods analysts used prior to Mare’s intervention. A summary of foundational aspects of the model, as well as insights from considering the model from three different vantage points, follows. Most notably, the comparisons made possible in the approach, some of which were not possible before, are highlighted. The model is then considered from three different perspectives. Still, the model is no panacea–challenges that have emerged concerning the Mare model are then noted. Yet, for each challenge there are feasible responses. Thus, analysts have continued the tradition, elaborating and extending the approach while producing substantive understanding and theoretical insights unavailable without access to the model. Thus, nearly half a century after Mare’s dissertation was filed, it is still bearing fruit. We are left with a powerful, continuing resource for understanding how social background and other determinants of interest are implicated in producing educational attainment–the Mare framework.