Institutions and Occupational Class Mobility: Scaling the Skill Barrier in the Danish Labour Market

This paper investigates upward mobility in the Danish labour market. The main question is whether the welfare state provides opportunities for upward mobility which are relatively independent of educational and skill barriers. It is argued that Denmark is an interesting test case because it shares, with Germany, a vocational training system which is often believed to suppress mobility and generate rigidity in the labour market. The empirical analysis shows that in the Danish case there is indeed a remarkable amount of upward mobility which cannot be explained by education and vocational training.