The role of intergenerational social mobility in subjective social status: Comparing children of immigrants and children of natives

Subjective social status (SSS)—how individuals perceive their position within the social hierarchy—offers a unique lens for understanding the lived experience of social stratification. In immigrant families, where migration is often driven by aspirations for upward mobility, SSS may be particularly revealing of how the second generation evaluates its own socioeconomic integration. Yet, despite a growing literature on well-being and life satisfaction, the SSS of immigrants' descendants remains understudied, and little is known about how it is shaped by intergenerational social mobility. Drawing on the nationally representative French Trajectories and Origins 2 survey (2019–2020), this study uses diagonal reference models to examine how educational and occupational mobility influence the SSS of children of immigrants compared to children of natives. The findings reveal that the effects of intergenerational social mobility on individuals' SSS are not universal. Instead, their existence and strength vary markedly across gender and ethnic groups: downward mobility has a significant negative effect on the SSS of sons of natives, but not of sons of immigrants. By contrast, it strongly lowers the SSS of daughters of immigrants—particularly those of North African and Middle Eastern origin—while leaving that of natives’ daughters unaffected. We argue that these patterns reflect the interplay of parental expectations and deviation from traditional gender roles. These results position SSS as a crucial, yet overlooked, indicator for understanding the subjective dimension of immigrant incorporation and intergenerational mobility.