Robert Erikson

Intergenerational Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

When economists are concerned with the inheritance of inequality, they typically focus on the intergenerational transmission of income or wealth. In contrast, sociologists are more likely to analyze intergenerational mobility between (and immobility in) different class positions.

Intergenerational Class Mobility and the Convergence Thesis: England, France and Sweden

In two papers previously published, we have compared rates of intergenerational class mobility among the adult male populations of England, France and Sweden (Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero 1979, 1982). The empirical results reported in these papers have been taken as a basis for evaluating current arguments concerning mobility patterns within western industrial societies and, in particular, for testing two different versions of the thesis which claims that these patterns display an essential similarity. The earliest and simplest version of this thesis is that due to Lipset and Zetterberg, which holds that the actually observed – or, as we would wish to say, the absolute – rates of mobility between broadly defined classes tend to be ‘much the same’ from one western industrial society to another (Lipset and Zetterberg 1959). The data presented in the first of our two papers stood in some opposition to this claim. While our results could lend support to the idea of there being a ‘family resemblance’ among the class mobility patterns of England, France and Sweden, each of these countries was at the same time found to have a fairly distinctive ‘mobility profile’ when intergenerational movements in class position were examined on the basis of a ninefold class schema. Inflow rates, or patterns of class recruitment, showed especially marked cross-national variation. A major factor creating such variation was evidently that of historically-determined differences in the class structures of the three societies, most notably ones associated with the relative sizes of their agricultural sectors and with differing rates of contraction of employment in agriculture in the course of economic development. It is, however, awareness of precisely this possibility of structurally induced variations in absolute mobility rates which distinguishes the subsequent reformulation of the Lipset-Zetterberg thesis undertaken by Featherman,

Individual or Family? Results from Two Approaches to Class Assignment:

With the individual approach to class assignment, every person is assigned a class position in accordance with his or her own employment, whereas with the conventional approach members of a family are all assigned the same class position according to the employment of the family head. It has recently been claimed that the conventional approach is outmoded because of the increasing numbers of married women entering the labour market and that the individual approach should therefore be used. In this paper it is shown that in several nations employed married womens class identification and political partisanship are more closely associated with their spouses class than with their own, as determined by the individual approach. It is concluded that those who prefer this latter approach must in turn accept that women tend to have a weaker class consciousness than men and likewise have lower levels of class voting. On the basis of the results reported, we suggest that the conventional approach still provides a more valid account of the class positions of men and women than does the individual approach.

Social Origin as an Interest-bearing Asset: Family Background and Labour-market Rewards among Employees in Sweden

We analysed the effects of social origin on social class and income for a large sample of Swedish employees, aged 25-45, in 1990. The statistical models are particularly strong in handling mediating effects of educational attainment. The results show that, controlling for level and type of education, sons and daughters of higher white-collar origin have substantially greater chances of reaching service class positions than children of unskilled working class origin. We also found origin effects on income. In a model evaluating level, type of education and work experience, the advantage to income of having a white-collar origin is about 3-8 per cent. While origin effects on class position appear at the onset of work life, origin effects on income tend to be more evident throughout peoples careers. Hypotheses about four mechanisms behind origin effects- Networks, Favouritism, Productivity, and Aspirations - are discussed on the basis of the results.

Welfare as a Planning Goal

My purpose with this article will be to discuss the consequences that may follow for physical planning if a high level of welfare in the population is established as the general goal. But let us first consider the concept of welfare itself.

Marital partner and mortality: the effects of the social positions of both spouses

Background: Dimensions of the individual socioeconomic position—education, social class, social status and income—are associated with mortality. Inequalities in death also related to the social position of the household. It is, however, less clear how the socioeconomic position of one marital/cohabiting partner influences the mortality of the other partner. We examine the independent effect on mortality of own and partner’s positions regarding these four socioeconomic factors. Methods: Register data on education, social class, social status and income of both marital/cohabiting partners were collected from the 1990 Census of the employed Swedish population aged 30–59 (N = 1 502 148). Data on all-cause mortality and deaths from cancer and circulatory disease for the subsequent period 1991–2003 were collected from the Cause of Death Register. Relative mortality risks for different socioeconomic groups were estimated by Cox regression. Results: All-cause mortality of both men and women differs by women’s education and status and by men’s social class and income. For men, the wife’s education is more important for the mortality risk than his own education when the man’s social class is included in the model. For women, the husband’s social class yields larger mortality differences than own occupational measures. Women’s education and men’s social class and income are particularly important for women’s deaths from circulatory diseases. Conclusion: The partner’s social position has a clear independent association with individual mortality, and women’s education and men’s social class seem to be particularly important. Suggested explanations of health inequality are not always compatible with the observed relationship between partners’ social and economic resources and mortality.

Social class and cause of death

BACKGROUND Previous studies have shown that causes of death differ in their relationship to social class, but we lack a more comprehensive description of this variation. The present study provides a detailed and extensive list of social class differences for a large number of specific causes of death. METHODS All deaths between 1991 and 2003 in Sweden were linked with information on household social class from 1990. Relative death risks and excess mortality in groups of causes according to the European shortlist were estimated separately for men and women in eight classes using Cox Regression. RESULTS A clear mortality gradient among employees was found for the majority of causes, from low-relative death risks among higher managerial and professional occupations to relatively high risks for the unskilled working class. There is considerable variation in the strength of the association, from causes such as malignant melanoma, breast cancer and transport accidents among women, where no clear class differences were found. At the other extreme, mental and behavioural disorders, endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases and diseases of the respiratory system all show steep slopes for both men and women. Circulatory diseases and cancer together account for 15-20% of excess mortality. CONCLUSIONS Exceptions to the general pattern--causes of death in which higher social classes are exposed to greater death risks or in which there is no mortality gradient--are practically non-existent. There is nevertheless significant variation in the strength of the class differences in specific causes.

The effects of social origins and cognitive ability on educational attainment Evidence from Britain and Sweden

In previous work we have shown that in Britain and Sweden alike parental class, parental status and parental education have independent effects on individuals’ educational attainment. In this paper we extend our analyses, first by also including measures of individuals’ early-life cognitive ability, and second by bringing our results for Britain and Sweden into direct comparative form. On the basis of extensive birth-cohort data for both countries, we find that when cognitive ability is introduced into our analyses, parental class, status and education continue to have significant, and in fact only moderately reduced and largely persisting, effects on the educational attainment of members of successive cohorts. There is some limited evidence for Britain, but not for Sweden, that cognitive ability has a declining effect on educational attainment, and a further cross-national difference is that in Britain, but not in Sweden, some positive interaction effects occur between advantaged social origins and high cognitive ability in relation to educational success. Overall, though, cross-national similarities are most apparent, and especially in the extent to which parental class, status and education, when taken together, create wide disparities in the eventual educational attainment of individuals who in early life were placed at similar levels of cognitive ability. Some wider implications of these findings are considered.

No way back up from ratcheting down? A critique of the 'microclass' approach to the analysis of social mobility

‘Microclasses’, detailed occupational groups, have recently been suggested as being the basis of research in social stratification; occupations represent ‘real’ social groups in contrast to the purely ‘nominal’ categories of either ‘big class’ schemata or socio-economic status scales. The microclass approach in social mobility research has been applied in a recent paper, the authors claiming to show that a strong propensity exists for intergenerational occupational inheritance, and that such inheritance is the dominant factor in social reproduction and limits equality of opportunity. We model a larger version of the same Swedish dataset as used by these authors. We show: (i) that while with many occupational groups a marked degree of intergenerational inheritance occurs among men, such inheritance is far less apparent among women, and, for both men and women, accounts for less than half of the total association in the occupational mobility table; (ii) that the microclass approach does not deal in a theoretically consistent way with the remaining associational underlying patterns of occupational mobility, since appeal is made to the theoretically alien idea of ‘socio-economic closeness’; and (iii) that a standard class approach, modified to account for occupational inheritance, can provide a more integrated understanding of patterns of immobility and mobility alike. We also give reasons for doubting whether it will prove possible to establish a theoretically consistent microclass approach to explaining intergenerational mobility propensities. Finally, on the basis of our empirical results and of the relevant philosophical literature, we argue that the microclass approach is unlikely to be helpful in addressing normative questions of equality of opportunity.

Clerics die, doctors survive: a note on death risks among highly educated professionals.

Aims: Mortality is strongly associated with education. We present relative death risks of men and women in 12 educational/ occupational groups in Sweden today, with a focus on individuals with higher education. Methods: Results from Cox regressions are reported for 12 educational groups with special emphasis on those with professional education, e.g. clerics, physicians, people with medical PhDs, and university teachers. The study is based on register data of the total Swedish population in the age group of 30—64 (n = 3,734,660). Results: There is a considerable variation in mortality between educational groups. Men with compulsory education run a risk that is more than three times higher than that of professors outside medicine, and other educational groups fall in between. Medical doctors and physicians have relatively low death risks compared to those with compulsory education — less than 50% among men and less than 60% among women — although professors in medicine deviate by having higher risks than their colleagues in other subjects. Those with a theological exam show higher risks of dying during the follow-up period compared to others of a similar educational level. Professors outside medicine experience the lowest death risks of all identified groups. Conclusions: Men and women with a professional education have comparatively low death risks, particularly low among medical doctors and university employees, while the clergy seems to experience relatively higher death risks than others with a similar level of education. These patterns may reflect the effects of education as well as the selection of men and women to higher education.