Social Mobility and Status Attainment Process of People with Farm Backgrounds in West Germany.

This article describes the dominant patterns of social mobility and analyzes the factors which determine educational and occupational attainment of people in the farm sector and after leaving the farm sector. The analysis is based on empirical data of the West German sample census (Mikrozensus-Zusatzbefragung April 1971) of 456,310 persons, 80,000 with farm background. Among the points investigated are the assumptions that farm background is a handicap in the process of status attainment in the non-farm sector and that the occupational status of farmers' sons in the non-farm sector is determined more by their own educational achievement than by other factors in their social background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]