The Permanency of Social Classes and Intergenerational Mobility in Finland

Abstract

Examination of social background in different social classes is based here on cross-tabulation of the respondent's and breadwinner's class position Classification follows E.O. Wright's class-scheme with some specifications. The results are founded on the Finnish sample, 'Comparative project on class structure and class consciousness', including interviews of 1311 respon dents. The analysis reveals that Finnish society, in terms of the essential class basis, is turning into a wage-workers' society, even though small-farmer background is still common in most social classes. While the relative share of wage-workers among the respondents increases moving from older gen erations to younger generations, the share of wage-worker background follows the same pattern. Intergenerational mobility between wage-worker classes is considerable, however Almost without exception, it is more common that second generation wage-workers have a wage-worker back ground other than their own. In other words, increased circular mobility is the expected tendency among wage-worker class groups.