Barriers to Social Mobility in American Society

Barriers to Social Mobility in American Society

Introduction

Social mobility is the movement that refers to the processes of alteration in occupation or income structure of the economy. This movement can refer to the classes, whole nations and ethnic groups and it can be also depended on the education or literacy. In easier words, social mobility relates the process when people move either downward or upward from one social group or class into other (Habil et. al, 2).This paper considers the issue of social mobility regarding different problems occurring in American society from a sociological perspective.

Discussion Analysis

Social mobility has been described by Nunn et.al in more complicated manner that first mentions about the thought of relative or absolute terms. They mention that when social mobility takes place in an absolute manner, the defined society gives the huge number of individuals for the better opportunities for the sake of socio-economic advancement. Absolute social mobility can be made possible by the developments in the structure of economic society. On the other hand, Relative social mobility usually takes place as an outcome of inter-generational and progressive intra developments to the status of socio-economic for a family or an individual. The mobility of Intra-generational means within the system is determined as the alteration in social status in a singular manner. On the other hand, mobility of Inter-generational which means across the system is determined as the alteration in social status that takes place from parents to the generation of children (www.3s4.org.uk). These philosophies are practical for analyzing the level of social changes from a single time-period to other, and if the social status of an individual's parents influences to their own status. Mostly Sociologists generally focus on the mobility of intergenerational because it is lighter to portray alterations across generations instead within a single system.

It has been observed that hard work and ability greatly affect over social mobility but we should not forget that luck, gender, race, and parent's wealth also impact over its execution. No one can deny that parents greatly help children to make the significant association with society's people in order to broaden their social circle. It should be noticed that Parents who could produce social capital for their children incline to raise the social mobility for their children.

Various studies have given social mobility among developed countries. A study like “Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults” defined that there are 9 developed states, in which U.K and U.S had the lowest social mobility of intergenerational vertical by the rewards of having a parent with a highest income handed on to the next generation. On the other hand, four states have the lowest intergenerational income elasticity such as Canada Norway, Finland, and Denmark with not more than twenty percent of advantages of having a highest income parent handed on to their children.

There is a one major reason according to Borjas that giving the high level of social mobility under American society during the nineteenth and twentieth ...