A Summary of What We Know about Social Mobility

• Author: Michael Hout
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214547174
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Subject Matter: Section I: The State of Knowledge about Mobility

ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015 27

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214547174

A Summary of

What We Know

about Social

Mobility

By

MICHAEL HOUT

547174ANN The Annals of the American AcademyWhat We Know About Social Mobility

research-article2014

Academic research on social mobility from the 1960s

until now has made several facts clear. First, and most

important, it is better to ask how the conditions and

circumstances of early life constrain adult success than

to ask who is moving up and who is not. The focus on

origins keeps the substantive issues of opportunity and

fairness in focus, while the mobility question leads to

confusing side issues. Second, mobility is intrinsically

symmetrical; each upward move is offset by a down-

ward move in the absence of growth, expansion, or

immigration. Third, social origins are not a single

dimension of inequality that can be paired with the

outcome of interest (without signicant excluded vari-

able bias); they are a comprehensive set of conditions

describing the circumstances of youth. Fourth, the

constraints of social origins vary by time, place, and

subpopulation. These four “knowns” should inform any

attempt to collect new data on mobility.

Keywords: social mobility; opportunity; social origins;

life chances

Discussions in public media show that

Americans now worry that the engine of

social mobility has stalled. Worry abounds

where pride once held sway. Generations of

Americans took for granted that each succeed-

ing generation did better than the last. No

more. Stagnant wages, insufficient employment

opportunity, and rising inequality stand in the

way of young people’s aspirations. Scholars

would like to join the conversation with facts to

confirm or allay the public’s worries. But the

United States has not conducted a large-scale

social mobility study since 1973. Small-scale

Michael Hout is a professor of sociology at New York

University, coauthor (with Claude S. Fischer) of

Century of Difference (Russell Sage Foundation 2006);

coauthor (with Andrew Greeley) of The Truth about

Conservative Christians (University of Chicago Press

2006), and coauthor (with Claude S. Fischer, Martín

Sánchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler, and

Kim Voss) of Inequality by Design (Princeton University

Press 1996).