“How is vertical and horizontal social mobility problematic in society? Suggest solutions.” (2005)
Mobility is usually praised as the sign of an open society, but sociologists since Émile Durkheim have noted its costs. Rapid movement up or down (vertical), or across places and occupations at the same rank (horizontal), unsettles norms, identities and relationships. The problems are real, but the answer to them is to manage mobility, not to resist it.
Problems of vertical mobility
Upward mobility
- Anomie: Durkheim (Suicide, 1897) showed that sudden prosperity, like sudden ruin, loosens the norms that limit desires. Robert K. Merton (1938) added that when success goals are open to all but legitimate means are not, people turn to deviant routes.
- Status inconsistency: Gerhard Lenski (1954) argued that people whose education or income outruns their inherited status experience strain and resentment. A Dalit officer who faces caste slurs in his village is an example.
- Backlash: upward mobility of subordinate groups threatens dominant ones. Attacks on Dalit bridegrooms who ride horses in wedding processions show violence used to defend rank.
- Relative deprivation and elite closure: those left behind feel deprived. Frank Parkin‘s social closure describes how established groups pull up the ladder behind them.
- Loss of leadership from below: mobile individuals may leave their community, draining it of leaders.
Downward mobility
- Status loss: it brings frustration, family conflict and sometimes suicide. Rural distress among indebted cultivators is an example.
- Political radicalisation: declining groups may turn to reactionary movements, including agitations for backward-class status by landed castes such as the Jats, Patidars and Marathas.
Problems of horizontal mobility
- Uprooting and marginality: migrants lose kin support and live between two cultures. This is Robert E. Park‘s “marginal man”.
- Urban strain: unplanned migration leads to slums, informal work and pressure on services.
- Exclusion from welfare: seasonal and circular migrants often lose access to rations, schooling and voting at their destination. The 2020 lockdown exodus exposed this.
- Brain drain and family disruption: skilled professionals emigrate, and wives and elderly parents are left behind, as in Kerala’s Gulf-migrant households.
- Occupational displacement: a move between jobs at the same rank can still mean lost skills and lost security.
Solutions
| Problem | Remedy |
|---|---|
| Anomie, blocked means | Expand quality education and skills so that aspirations match opportunities |
| Backlash and discrimination | Enforce the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act strictly; sensitise police and panchayats |
| Uneven benefits of reservation | Sub-classification within SCs and STs, allowed by the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024); creamy-layer filters |
| Downward mobility | Social insurance, crop insurance and debt relief |
| Migrant exclusion | Portable rights such as One Nation One Ration Card; worker registration through the e-Shram portal (2021) |
| Urban strain | Affordable rental housing and balanced regional development |
| Brain drain | Research funding and links with the diaspora |
Conclusion
The disruption that comes with mobility often shows that the social structure has not kept pace with the movement of people. Societies that give security to those who move, and protect groups on the rise from those who feel threatened, gain the benefits of openness without breaking apart.