Comparative Social Mobility Revisited: Models of Convergence and Divergence in 16 Countries

Abstract

This paper reanalyzes 3-stratum intergenerational mobility classifications, assembled by Hazelrigg and Garnier for men in 16 countries in the 1960s and 1970s. Log-linear and log-multiplicative models are used to compare mobility regimes and to estimate effects of industrialization, educational enrollment, social democracy, and income inequality on immobility and other parameters of the mobility process. Several models of mobility fit the data equally well, so criteria of plausibility and parsimony are applied to choose one model of stratum-specific immobility and another model of vertical mobility with uniform immobility. We find substantial similarity in mobility and immobility across countries, but the exogenous variables do explain systematic differences among countries. Cross-national variations are complex because most of the exogenous variables have different effects on different parameters of the mobility regime. Relative to other factors, industrialization and education have weaker effects on mobility regimes than has usually been supposed.