Opening and Closing the Gates: Recent Developments in Male Social Mobility in Britain

Abstract

Sociological understanding of social mobility in Britain has depended heavily on the 1972 Nuffield Mobility Study. In the virtual absence of more recent data, analysis has drawn on this single study with its reliance on cohorts of males as the indicator of changes in mobility. One of the central conclusions has been that relative mobility rates, the key marker of class inequalities, remain unchanged. A new analysis of data from recent British Election Surveys shows that these conclusions should not be empirically generalised to the last quarter of a century, and that British society has experienced both periods of greater ?openness? and ‘closure’. Several conceptual reservations follow once the limitations of the ‘Nuffield tradition’ have been identified. In particular, a case is made for closer attention to labour market processes and rates of absolute mobility.