THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL MOBILITY: AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY.

A common use of the term "social mobility" implies that there exist high intercorrelations among the several dimensions resumed to comprise the concept. A comprehensive statistical analysis of 22 variables presumably measuring various aspects of social movement shows that even when the focus of observation is restricted to the married pair at least eight, and possibly nine, orthogonal dimensions can be isolated. Among other things, the data show that it is erroneous to posit interchangeablities among or between objective and subjective dimensions of mobility; of husband and wife variables; and of intergenerational and intragenerational mobility. Thus the most general implication of this paper is that "social mobility" is a complex multidimensional concept consisting of an indeterminate but considerable number of components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]