The Study of Social Mobility and the Formation of the Working Class in the 19th Century
Year: 1980
Type: article
Abstract: In the 1960s and 1970s social mobility was a favourite subject of social historians, particularly in North America. While serving many different interests of research, most of these studies also contributed to our knowledge about working class history. It was important to learn more about the changirlg connection between workers' migrations, occupational change and the chances (and risks) of climbing (and skidding) up (and down) the hierarchy of social positions however defined It would be difficult to discuss what it means to be a worker-or rather a specific type of worker at a specific place at a certain period of time without knowing anything about the probable permanence or the temporary character of his or her-position. It is much easier to say something about the meaning that upward social mobility in the sense of moving up on a hierarchy of occupationally defined status positions had for those who moved and those who stayed in their positions, if one knows whether such moves were usually paralleled by improvements of income and property, as well. The study of inter-generational mobility and marriage patterns may tell something about the families workers lived in. The laborious and sophisticated monographs of the so-called > of the 1960s and 1970s have contributed much to our knowledge about such problems, arsd continue to do
Source: Le Mouvement social
DOI: 10.2307/3778009
Author: Jurgen Kocka
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2071865161