Social Mobility in Great Britain and the United States

Numerous discussions and some previous research have suggested that the United States and Great Britain should differ in their patterns of social mobility, with Great Britain exhibiting more intergenerational continuity of social position. Some have questioned this view, however, and have offered a different hypothesis. As offered by Featherman, Jones, and Hauser, the counterhypothesis is that differences among Western industrial societies are due to historical patterns of change that affect marginal distributions but that the patterns of fluidity in these societies are the same, once marginal distribution differneces are taken into account. The present analysis, using data from the Occupational Change in a Generation Survey II and the Oxford Social Mobility Study, indicates that there is considerably more overall intergenerational and career mobility in the United States but hat the major differences between the two societies are due to shifts in the distributions of kinds of occupations. Analysis of the patterns of fluidity, once the differences in marginal distributions are taken into account, shows very minor differences between the two societies. The common mobility regimes found in the two societies involve considerable intergenerational and career continuity of position and little long distance mobility. They also involve class effects in that there are strong links within farming and professional occupations, and entrepreneurial occupations are more strongly linked to each other than with nonentrepreneurial ones. The analysis thus provides support for Featherman, Jones, and Hauser's hypothesis.