Some Real and Imaginary Consequences of Social Mobility: A French-American Comparison

The consequences (correlates) of intergenerational occupational mobility were examined among French and American male workers. The comparative interest focused on two features: (1) the presumed sharper discontinuity of French class structure compared with the more diffuse American system; and (2) the supposed differences in mobility attitudes in the two countries. Structure and attitudes are commonly taken as conditioners of the mobility experience, moderating or heightening its hypothesized effects on (for example) feelings of social isolation, ethnic prejudice, sense of relative deprivation, and political radicalism or conservatism. The analysis, however, argues strongly in support of French-American similarity rather than difference, in two major respects: (1) mobility attitudes showed the same basic structure and correlation pattern; and (2) as expected, the effects which can be attributed to objective mobility were highly limited in both countries.