Social Mobility

Capital-Based Mobility

Pierre Bourdieu argued that social mobility is determined by four types of capital. The first, economic capital, refers to any access to money and wealth. Next, social capital refers to any benefits received from social networks and other relationships. Cultural capital is the overall knowledge, skills, and cultural background that are passed from parents to their children. Finally, symbolic capital refers to any symbols of prestige and power that one is able to possess. In U.S. society, all capital associated with the upper class is highly valued and allows for greater social mobility. However, upper-class capital tends to be the result of high levels of education and wealth and greater access to those resources. This results in an unfair advantage for those in higher class positions, [Page 1254]leaving those in lower-class positions without the same access to opportunities.

Social mobility is determined by two types of statuses. An achieved status is any attribute that one can gain, such as earning a college degree or trade training. These types of achievements help increase one's likelihood of obtaining a more prestigious occupation or making more income. An ascribed status is what an individual is born into, such as a particular race or gender. Although these characteristics cannot be controlled, there is a tendency for some groups to gain large amounts of prestige based on their ascribed status, such as being born into a particular family (e.g., the Hiltons, Rockefellers).

The General Social Survey (GSS), conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), takes measures of “occupational prestige.” Prestige is determined by the level of respect associated with a particular occupation and is ranked from 0 as the lowest score to 100 as the highest score. When an individual changes professions that have the same occupational prestige score, this is referred to as horizontal mobility. However, if an individual moves up or down the occupational prestige rankings, this is referred to as vertical mobility. This can occur as upward social mobility, when an individual gains something that allows him or her to move into a higher class position, such as earning a college degree. On the other hand, downward social mobility occurs when an individual loses something that helps that person maintain a current class position (e.g., loss of a job). Intragenerational social mobility refers to social mobility that occurs in one's lifetime, and intergenerational social mobility is the relationship between the social class of a family and the social class that its children are in as adults.

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