Society today is growing rapidly. This leads to the emergence of new positions, a significant increase in the number of social movements, their speed and frequency.
What is social mobility?
The first to study such a concept as social mobility was Sorokin Pitirim. Today, many researchers continue the work begun by him, since its relevance is very great.
Social mobility is expressed in the fact that the position of a person in the hierarchy of groups, in relation to his means of production, in the division of labor and in the whole system of production relations is significantly transformed. This change is associated with the loss or acquisition of property, the transfer to a new position, education, the acquisition of a profession, marriage, etc.
People are in constant motion, and society is constantly evolving. This indicates the variability of its structure. The totality of all social movements, that is, changes in the social status of an individual or groups, is included in the concept of social mobility.
History examples
Since ancient times, this topic has been relevant and aroused interest. For example, a sudden fall of a person or his exaltation is a favorite plot of many folk tales: a wise and cunning beggar becomes a rich man; the industrious Cinderella finds a rich prince and marries him, thereby increasing her prestige and status; the poor prince is suddenly made king.
However, the movement of history is mainly determined not by individuals, not by their social mobility. Social groups are more important to her. The land aristocracy, for example, was replaced at a certain stage by the financial bourgeoisie; people with low-skilled professions are being squeezed out of modern production by white-collar workers - programmers, engineers, and operators. Revolutions and wars redrawed the social structure, raising some to the top of the pyramid and lowering others. Such changes in Russian society occurred, for example, in 1917, after the October Revolution.
Consider the various reasons by which social mobility can be divided, and its corresponding types.
1. Social mobility intergenerational and intergenerational
Any movement of a person between social groups or layers means his mobility up or down within the social structure. Note that this can concern both one generation and two or three. Changing the position of children compared with the positions of their parents is evidence of their mobility. On the contrary, social stability takes place when a certain position of generations is maintained.
Social mobility can be intergenerational (intergenerational) and intragenerative (intragenerational). In addition, there are 2 of its main types - horizontal and vertical. In turn, they decompose into subtypes and subspecies that are closely related to each other.
Intergenerational social mobility means increasing or, conversely, lowering the status of representatives of subsequent generations in society in relation to the status of the current one. That is, children reach a higher or lower position in society than their parents. For example, if the son of a miner becomes an engineer, we can talk about upward mobility intergenerational. A downward movement is observed if the professor’s son works as a plumber.
Intra-generational mobility is a situation in which the same person, unlike his parents, changes his position in society several times throughout his life. This process is otherwise referred to as a social career. Turner, for example, can become an engineer, then the head of the workshop, then he can be promoted to the director of the plant, after which he can take the post of Minister of Engineering.
2. Vertical and horizontal
Vertical mobility is the movement of an individual from one stratum (or caste, class, estate) to another.
Allocate, depending on what direction this movement has, mobility upward (upward movement, social upsurge) and downward (downward movement, social descent). For example, promotion is an example of an upward, and demotion or dismissal is a downward example.
The concept of horizontal horizontal social mobility means that an individual moves from one social group to another, located at the same level. Examples include moving from a Catholic to an Orthodox religious group, changing citizenship, moving from a parental family to one’s own, from one profession to another.
Geographic mobility
Geographical social mobility is a kind of horizontal. It does not mean a change in a group or status, but a relocation to another place while maintaining the previous social status. An example is interregional and international tourism, moving to the village from the city and back. Geographic social mobility in modern society is also a transition from one company to another with maintaining the status (for example, an accountant).
Migration
We have not yet considered all the concepts related to the topic of interest to us. The theory of social mobility also highlights migration. We talk about it when a change of status is added to a change of place. For example, if a resident of a village came to the city in order to visit his relatives, then there is geographical mobility. However, if he moved here for permanent residence, began working in the city, then this is already migration.
Factors affecting horizontal and vertical mobility
Note that the nature of horizontal and vertical social mobility of people is affected by age, gender, mortality and birth rates, and population density. Men, as well as young people in general, are more mobile than the elderly and women. In overpopulated states, emigration is higher than immigration. In places with a high birth rate, a younger population and, therefore, more mobile. For young people, professional mobility is more characteristic, for the elderly - political, for adults - economic.
The birth rate is not equally distributed among classes. As a rule, lower classes have more children, and higher classes have fewer. The higher a person ascends the social ladder, the less children are born to him. Even if each son of a rich man takes the place of his father, voids will still form in the social pyramid, on its upper steps. They come from lower classes.
3. Social mobility group and individual
There are also group and individual mobility. Individual is the movement of a particular individual up, down or horizontally along the social ladder, regardless of other people. Group mobility - moving up, down or horizontally along the social ladder of a certain group of people. For example, the old class after the revolution is forced to give up the dominant position to the new.
Group and individual mobility are associated in a certain way with attained and attributed statuses. In this case, the individual corresponds to a greater extent to the achieved status, and the group corresponds to attributed.
Organized and structural
These are the basic concepts of the topic that interests us. When considering types of social mobility, sometimes mobility is also organized when the movement of an individual or group down, up or horizontally is controlled by the state, both with the consent of people and without it. Organized voluntary mobility can include socialist organizational recruitment, calls for construction, etc. To involuntary - dispossession and resettlement of small nations in the period of Stalinism.
Structural mobility should be distinguished from organized mobility due to changes in the structure of the economy itself. It occurs in addition to the consciousness and will of individuals. For example, social mobility of a society is great when professions or industries disappear. In this case, large masses of people are moving, and not just individuals.
For clarity, we consider the conditions for increasing the status of a person in two subspaces - professional and political. Any ascent of a government official through the ranks is reflected as a change in rank in the state hierarchy. Political weight can also be increased by increasing rank in the party hierarchy. If the official is one of the activists or functionaries of the party that became ruling after the parliamentary elections, then he is much more likely to take a leadership position in the system of municipal or state administration. And, of course, the professional status of an individual will increase after receiving a diploma of higher education.
Mobility rate
The theory of social mobility introduces such a concept as the intensity of mobility. This is the number of individuals who change their social position in the horizontal or vertical direction over a certain period of time. The number of such individuals in a social community is the absolute intensity of mobility, while their share in the total number of this community is relative. For example, if we count the number of people under 30 who are divorced, then there is an absolute intensity of mobility (horizontal) in this age category. However, if we consider the ratio of the number of divorced people under the age of 30 to the number of all individuals, this will already be relative mobility in the horizontal direction.