Social Mobility - Absolute and Relative Mobility

Absolute and Relative Mobility

Absolute mobility measures whether (and by how much) living standards in a society have increased—often measured by what percentage of people have higher incomes than their parents. Relative mobility refers to how likely children are to move from their parents’ place in the income distribution. So, for example, if a person’s income increases from $32,000 at the beginning of their career to $36,000 a decade later, whereas most other people who began their work life around the same time experienced a larger increase, that person has experienced upward absolute mobility but downward relative mobility.

The more absolute mobility there is, the better off the population is than their parents, and their children will consequently be better off than them. Relative mobility refers to the fluidity of a society. If your family is poor, you have a decent chance of moving up the relative income ladder. Because relative mobility depends on one’s place in the distribution, it is a zero-sum phenomenon. In other words, if one person moves up in relative terms, another by definition must have moved down. In contrast, absolute mobility is not zero-sum.

Although both absolute and relative mobility are both forms of intragenerational mobility, these two have very little to do with each other. High absolute mobility rates can co-exist with highly unequal relative mobility chances. Thus, you can have an economy with a lot of absolute mobility, and little relative mobility or an economy with a lot of relative mobility, and little absolute mobility. Social mobility is an act of moving from one social class to another. The amount of movement up and down the class structure would indicate the extent of social mobility prevalent in the society. The social mobility is greatly influenced by the level of openness of the society. An open society is the one where people attain their status primarily by their own efforts.

The extent of mobility may be taken as an index of meritocracy of a society indicating how far talented individuals born into lower strata can move up the socio-economic ladder; and vice versa, how far lazy rich people move down the ladder. In this respect, social mobility is an important political issue, particularly in countries committed to a liberal vision of equal opportunity for all citizens. In this perspective industrial societies are mostly open societies exhibiting high social mobility. Compared with them, pre-industrial societies have mostly been found to be closed societies where there has been low social mobility. People in such societies have been confined to their ancestral occupations, and their social status has mostly been prescribed.

The movement of people up or down the social hierarchy can be looked at either within one generation called intra-generational mobility or between generations labeled as inter-generational mobility. Intra-generational mobility consists of movement up and down the stratification system by members of a single generation (the-social class in which you began life compared with your social class at the end of your life). Inter-generational mobility consists of movement up and down the stratification system by members of successive generations of a family (your social class location compared with that of your parents, for example). Comparison is usually made between social class status of son and father. Mobility is functional. Open societies provide opportunities to their members for the development of their talents and working toward their individual fulfillment. At the same time a person can select the best person for doing a particular job

Social mobility can be classified as:

• Vertical mobility: The movement of individuals and groups up or down the socioeconomic scale. Those who gain in property, income, status, and position are said to be upwardly mobile, while those who move in the opposite direction are downwardly mobile.

• Horizontal mobility: The movement of individuals and groups in similar socio-economic positions, which may be in different work situations. This may involve change in occupation or remaining in the same occupation but in a different organization, or may be in the same organization but at a different location.

• Lateral mobility: It is a geographical movement between neighborhoods, towns or regions. In modern societies there is a great deal of geographical mobility. Lateral mobility is often combined with vertical as well as horizontal mobility.