Vertical mobility and class inheritance in the British Isles.

This paper compares vertical mobility in Dublin and England and Wales as displayed in mobility tables using the seven class categories developed by Goldthorpe (1980). A model is developed which demonstrates the pattern of vertical mobility in each country and also allows us to measure the extent of class inheritance as distinct from class self-recruitment. The data are used to test the FJH thesis, and some differences between Dublin and England and Wales — in their degree of ‘openness’ and in the relative standings of the different classes — are examined. Patterns of relative mobility are found to differ quite strongly between the two with Dublin being considerably less open than England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]