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From the theoretical standpoint, this paper attempts to integrate the objective, cognitive and normative dimensions of social mobility. This integration is based on a comparison of the matrices of actual, perceived and equitable frequencies of transitions between origins and destinations. The ratios of compared frequencies operationally define the degree of false consciousness, feeling of injustice and illegitimacy in the domain of social mobility. From the methodological standpoint we propose a practical method for ascertaining cognitive and normative mobility frequencies. In this paper we used average frequencies for the entire sample, although an analysis of individual images and preferences of mobility frequencies can be performed. This extension would seem particularly useful for heterogeneous samples with respect to the social positions of the respondents. From the empirical standpoint we have demonstrated that, net of marginal effects, the matrices of actual, perceived and equitable mobility do not differ very much from each other, at least in terms of the goodness of fit. Within a small range of differences the measure of false consciousness has a smaller value than the measure of illegitimacy, which is still smaller than the measure of the feeling of injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The studies of class structure and social mobility are among the most highly developed branches of sociology in Poland. This is due to three factors: the national tradition of such studies, the rapid transformation of Polish society after the Second World War, and last, the recent impact of Marxist theory on the social sciences. The rapid transformation of Polish society after the Second World War was brought about by the socialist revolution, characterized by the impact of the Workers' Party, the nationalization of industry, agrarian reform, and central planning. In this context new processes within a given class structure and new patterns of social mobility became an object of special attention for sociologists. Class structure and social mobility were considered not only from the point of view of changes in the political and economic system but also with respect to transformations in cultural institutions and the educational system.

This paper presents detailed analyses of eight dimensions of objective distances among social classes in Hungary and Poland based on large-scale social surveys carried out during the 1980s. The data for both countries could be fitted well with a modified log-multiplicative model that included a single set of relative class distances and class-specific tendencies for homophily across all dimensions. Social distances were greatest with regard to the selection of friends, and endogamy with regard to class of spouse and career mobility. Distances were more moderate with regard to intergenerational social mobility, endogamy with regard to spouse's father, and similarities among siblings. They were smallest for residential segregation and two-generation intergenerational mobility. In Hungary, homophily was greatest for workers in agriculture, the self-employed, and higher professionals. The largest gaps in unidimensional class distances were between skilled and semiskilled workers and between higher professionals and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines flows (movements between origin and destination positions in the social structure) and relationships (dependencies of the destination positions on positions of origin) in terms of two conceptualizations of individuals' locations in the social structure: social class(SC) and socioeconomic index (SEI). Using Romanian data for 1970 (full-fledged communism), 1988 (late communism), and 2000 (early capitalism) demonstrates that: (1) social mobility increased from 1970 to 2000, mainly in the form of circulation mobility, while structural mobility actually decreased; (2) dependencies between SC of origin and SC of destination appeared to be much stronger in 1970 than in 2000; (3) in terms of the difference between respondents' SEI and that of their fathers, there is very little change between 1988 and 2000; (4) for the same period, 1988-2000, the relationship between respondents' SEI and that of their fathers strengthened considerably, even when controlling for respondents' education. Thus, the results for 1970-2000, expressed in terms of flows and relationships for SC, indicate the increasing openness of Romanian society, while the results for 1988-2000, expressed in terms of flows and relationships for SEI, indicate the opposite--less openness in the postcommunist era. An attempt to solve the problem of these seemingly contradictory results confirms that social class and socioeconomic status pertain to two different dimensions of social inequality, demonstrating the usefulness of the complex approach that includes both these dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports two analyses of changes in social mobility in Hungary during the period from the 1930s through the 1980s. The first analysis is based on retrospective life-history data from merged files from the 1973 and 1983 Hungarian social mobility surveys. It reveals the ways in which Hungarian intergenerational social mobility changed across single years of time and birth cohorts. The patterns of change reflect the effects of historical changes in social policy far more clearly than crosssectional data aggregated over cohorts. The second analysis, based on career histories in the 1983 survey, reports changes in mobility into the Hungarian elite, showing that persons of privileged class backgrounds suffered diminished opportunities during the 1950s but, to some extent, regained positions thereafter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational social mobility statistics for fifty-two countries are compared with regard to both total rates of mobility and indices of social fluidity. The set of socialist mobility tables includes all large-scale surveys carried out in East-Central Europe through the 1980s. Total rates of mobility are found to be higher in Eastern Europe than elsewhere on the average, but, several capitalist countries have had similar rates of total mobility. Social fluidity between agricultural manual positions and industrial manual positions is consistently higher in countries with collectivized agriculture. Otherwise, there is little evidence of consistent socialist-capitalist differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the occupational mobility in a Swedish city of Katrineholm. The article provides an overview of hypotheses and empirical generalizations concerning the patterns and trends of inter and intragenerational class mobility. The article examines the patterns and trends of job mobility, using data on work histories recently collected among a sample of employees in Katrineholm. Also, it examines to what extent individuals' total experience of gainful work is divided among different classes. There is a description of trends in inter and intragenerational mobility, on the basis of cohort analysis. Changes in class recruitment between generations are studies by examining class origin distributions by the individual's own class at forty years of age. Also, changes in recruitment during working life are examined by showing individuals' class positions at ages twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five by class positions at age forty. Four categories of employees are distinguished throughout: unskilled industrial workers, skilled industrial workers, unskilled manual municipal employees and middle-level or higher white-collar municipal employees. Most class shifts have an upward rather than downward direction, and short-range movement is more common than long-range.

The article focuses on the role of education in the social mobility, or social reproduction along with the investigation on Swedish survey data. The importance of education for transmission of social positions is only partial. The weakest link in the chain is the one between origin and education, whereas the strongest is the association between education and class destination. For parents in the upper service class, education is an important resource for securing privileged positions for their off-spring, probably acquiring its efficacy from the superior qualifications they hold themselves. Work-life mobility also occurs on the basis of pure chance and personality traits not necessarily measured by educational level. Social reproduction is also likely to be dependent on an individual's social network, either by enhancing job opportunities through personal contacts, or by restricting them, via personal ties to relatives, friends, or to the home region. The article also analyzes the changes in reproduction process and in the role of education for the process. The findings show generally decreasing associations among origin, education, and destination. The experiences in Sweden do not conform to widespread theories of change in social mobility and social reproduction.

This article focuses on the Transition to socialism and intergenerational class mobility. The data from the 1984 Social Structure Survey in Czechoslovakia were used for the analysis.' This survey was carried out on a sample of the population over fifteen years of age, representative according to sex and age. The non-response rate was 8.8% and the final sample size was 18,829. In the foregoing analyses, origin is defined by the father's class at the time when a respondent (son, daughter) entered the labor force. Destination alternates the respondent's present class, entry class, and class at 40 years of age, for younger respondents this is equal to their present class, hereinafter Class 40. The two later variables mostly enter a cohort analysis, which substitutes the unfortunate lack of mobility data from the past. The higher industrialization rate in Czechoslovakia than in Hungary and Poland may be illustrated by the proportion of workers and farmers, together with farm workers, in the father's generation. The percentage of workers was 55% in Czechoslovakia, as compared to 33% in Hungary and 30% in Poland. On the other hand, the proportion of farmers was 22% in Czechoslovakia as compared to 49% in Hungary and 57% in Poland.

This article focuses on the changes in social mobility in Hungry. The possibilities for an international comparison of social mobility are exceptionally good, as there are five and several additional smaller data sources on social mobility. These Hungarian social mobility data were widely used for cross-sectional international comparisons. In this article, however, the analysis will be concentrated on the historical development of social mobility in Hungary, based on the five major data sources: first, the of 1930; second, the census of 1949; third, the social mobility surveys of 1962-1964; fourth, of 1973; and fifth, of 1983. This historical comparative analysis might be especially interesting, as Hungary underwent important economic and social changes during the last sixty years. In order to understand the meaning of different types of social mobility, the relative position of the different social strata in the social hierarchy has to be presented. The easiest way to illustrate the social stratification in Hungary is to give the average per capita income levels of the households of different social strata. It ought to be added that ocher indicators of social stratification, like the quality of dwelling personal car ownership the participation in cultural activities, demonstrate a similar hierarchy of the strata, but somewhat greater differentiation or inequalities.

The article focuses on ways in which the educational systems intervene in the process of social mobility. The article points out that education plays a major role in placing individuals in different slots of the class structure. Education becomes more important in the course of industrialization because of the shift in the labor force towards more professional, technical, and administrative jobs. With the increasing significance of human capital as a production factor, the social structure become more open and immobility between generations decline. Educational institutions are important because they provide qualifications and skills that enable individuals to accomplish certain tasks in the societal division of labor. The demand of highly industrialized societies for a mobile and adaptable labor force likely results in a shift from ascriptive to universalistic achievement criteria as a basis for occupational role allocation. The size of classes in the composition of the class structure therefore constitutes one of the central factors deciding how important education can be for social mobility.

The article focuses on the stability of occupational structures and social mobility in the Soviet Union. Any society has its own specific social relations and relatively fixed class structures and interest groupings, which form the basis for each society's social contract. Family resources are of some significance in socialist societies for the reproduction of social inequalities. The average individual incomes as well as the household incomes have never been so unequally distributed in the Soviet Union as in western societies. The practice in socialist societies is to economize in the social services sectors, and to keep the wages of at least the bottom-level and middle-level white-collar workers in these sectors low. Since there is almost no vocational apprentice training in the Soviet Union, the rank within a firm is determined essentially by considerations of seniority. The relatively low average incomes in many service sector branches, are responsible for the relatively low earned incomes of unspecialized white-collar workers.

The article presents a study, which is not only a conventional description but also an analytic treatment of social mobility in terms of its components: structural and exchange mobility. The need for such a distinction seems obvious, since each of the components of mobility is concerned with a different type of change in the social structure and is an expression of different aspects of the structure. Structural mobility is an adaptation to technological and demographic changes, whereas exchange mobility demonstrates the degree of egalitarianism regulating the exchange of individuals among socioeconomic groups and social classes. A specific analytical model has been used in the analysis, one that stresses the process of individual exchange. The essence of the model is a comparison of the actual exchange of individuals with the magnitude that should occur in an equal opportunity situation. The openness coefficient allows one to measure the intensity of relative exchange mobility.