Parents' Occupations and their Children's Occupational Attainment: A Contribution to the Debate on the Class Assignment of Families

This research note uses survey data from six British local labour markets collected as part of the ESRC Social Change and Economic Life Initiative to examine the effects of parents' occupational classes on the probability of their children attaining service class occupations. Both mother's occupational class and father's occupational class are found to have independent effects on this probability, regardless of the sex of the child. The implications of these findings in relation to the debate on the class assignment of families are considered, and it is concluded that one's interpretation of the findings is contingent on one's perception of the nature and scope of class analysis. If one takes a broad view of class analysis then the empirical importance of mother's occupation in relation to the occupational mobility of children of both sexes suggests that married women's occupations should be integrated into the process of determining the class of family units.