“Write short note: Vertical social mobility.” (2006)
Vertical social mobility is movement up or down a hierarchy of wealth, power or prestige: a rise or fall in rank, not just a change of position. Pitirim Sorokin (Social Mobility, 1927) called these ascending and descending currents and treated them as the real test of how open a stratification system is.
Forms
| Basis | Forms | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Upward (social climbing) / downward (social sinking) | A landless labourer’s son becomes a teacher / a zamindar family loses its estates after abolition |
| Unit | Individual / group | A Dalit officer’s promotion / the Nadars of Tamil Nadu rising from toddy-tappers to a trading community |
| Distance | Short-range / long-range | Clerk to supervisor / manual worker’s child to judge |
| Time | Intragenerational / intergenerational | A career climb / a comparison with one’s parents |
Channels
Sorokin named the army, church, school, political organisations, economic organisations and the family (through marriage) as “elevators” of vertical circulation. In India, the traditional channels were Sanskritisation, hypergamy, conquest and royal patronage. Modern ones are education, reservation, electoral politics and the market. Robert L. Hardgrave Jr. (The Nadars of Tamilnad, 1969) showed how trade, missionary schooling and caste associations worked together to lift a whole community.
What research shows
- David Glass (Social Mobility in Britain, 1954) found plenty of short-range movement but little long-range movement, and a self-recruiting elite.
- John H. Goldthorpe (1980) found more upward than downward mobility in Britain. The cause was the growth of professional and managerial jobs, while the relative odds of different classes stayed much the same.
- In India, Vegard Iversen, Anirudh Krishna and Kunal Sen analysed IHDS 2011-12 data on sons of agricultural and other labourers. 26.8% of urban sons reached clerical or professional work, against 10.5% of rural sons. The figure was 24.7% for forward-caste sons and 10.6% for Scheduled Caste sons.
Positional or structural change?
- M. N. Srinivas noted that Sanskritisation brings positional change for a group without altering the caste structure: the ladder stays even as a caste climbs it.
- When many individuals move up over time through schooling, jobs and politics, they can erode the ritual basis of rank itself. The loosening of the link between caste and occupation shows this.
Consequences
- Integration: Frank Parkin saw upward mobility as a political safety valve that absorbs discontent among able members of lower classes.
- Strain: Sorokin linked intense mobility to mental strain, isolation and weaker moral bonds. Robert E. Park‘s “marginal man” captures the upwardly mobile person caught between two worlds.
- Class formation: Karl Marx expected high mobility to weaken class solidarity. Low mobility lets classes reproduce a shared way of life.
- Backlash: Dalit upward mobility has sometimes provoked violence from groups whose dominance it threatens.
Conclusion
Vertical mobility is the part of social movement that sociology measures most closely, because it shows whether position is earned or inherited. India today has a great deal of short-range and structural upward movement. Long-range mobility remains closely tied to where a person lives and what caste they are born into.