Beyond Post-CASMIN: From the Third to the Fifth Generation in Social Mobility Research

1. BEYOND POST-CASMIN FROM THE THIRD TO THE FIFTH GENERATION IN SOCIAL MOBILITY RESEARCH Wout Ultee Radboud University Nijmegen Presentation at the Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung on the occasion of Walter Müller’s superannuation January 27, 2007 posted at http://www.socsci.ru.nl/maw/sociologie/ultee/

2. GIVEN THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IN ACADEMIA SOCIOLOGY SHOULD BE ABOUT HUMAN SOCIETIES IN THE PLURAL HOWEVER POST-1945 DOMINANCE OF SOCIOLOGY BY THE U.S.A. LED TO THE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY IN THE SINGULAR AND DESPITE THE PRESENT SPATE OF COMPARISONS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETIES ‘WHY IS NOT THE WHOLE WORLD LIKE THE USA?’ QUESTIONS STILL ARE BEING ADDRESSED

3. THE FOREMOST ACCOMPLISHMENT OF CASMIN AND ITS OFFSHOOTS IS THAT IT BROKE U.S.A. DOMINANCE IN SOCIOLOGY CASMIN DID SO BY TURNING THE LIABILITY OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL DIVERSITY INTO A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND POST-CASMIN DID SO BY COMPARING TRENDS IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES DURING THE WHOLE OF THE 20TH CENTURY (POST-)CASMIN IN THIS WAY PERFORMED THE PRIME JOB OF SOCIOLOGY

5. THE POST-CASMIN SELF-UNDERSTANDING IS THAT SOUND EMPIRICAL REGULARITIES NOW HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED AND THAT THE JOB OF EXPLAINING THESE REGULARITIES IS UNDERWAY POST-CASMIN SEEKS TO REPLACE EXPLANATIONS INVOLVING BLIND MACRO FACTORS WITH DEEPER EXPLANATIONS INVOKING RATIONAL INDIVIDUAL ACTORS I BEG TO DIFFER – ON TWO COUNTS

6. FIRST IF AN EXPLANATION OF A SUPPOSEDLY SOUND REGULARITY IS AT HAND THEN THE CONDITIONS ARE KNOWN UNDER WHICH THIS REGULARITY IS STRONGER OR WEAKER AS WELL AS THOSE UNDER WHICH IT IS ABSENT AND A TEST OF THE EXPLANATION REQUIRES A HUNT FOR THESE EXCEPTIONAL CONDITIONS POPPER IN ‘THE POVERTY OF HISTORICISM’ FROM 1944 AND ‘THE AIM OF SCIENCE’ FROM 1957 THE SUPERFLUITY OF PAINSTAKING DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH THE NECESSITY OF FOLLOW-UP RESEARCH

7. SECOND IF A REGULARITY PERTAINS TO SOCIETIES ITS EXPLANATION CANNOT BE PURELY INDIVIDUAL THIS EXPLANATION USES A THEORY OF HUMAN ACTION AND AUXILIARY ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SOCIETIES THESE AUXILIARY ASSUMPTIONS TAKE COMMUNITIES, MARKETS, OR STATES AS CONTEXTS FOR HUMAN ACTION AND MORE PRECISELY AS WAYS OF COORDINATING THE ACTIONS OF THE INDIVIDUALS MAKING UP A SOCIETY’S POPULATION AND THESE ASSUMPTIONS HOLD THAT MARKETS HAVE BECOME MORE PREVALENT IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES HEILBRONER, THE WORLDY PHILOSOPHERS , 1953

8. THE SELF-UNDERSTANDING OF CASMIN IS THAT IT MADE PROGRESS WITH RESPECT TO DATA ANALYSIS AND DATA PREPARATION DATA ANALYSIS BY WAY OF ODDS RATIOS AND THEIR DERIVATIVES DATA PREPARATION BY WAY OF RECODING OCCUPATIONAL TITLES OF PERSONS - TOGETHER WITH SOME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION -FOR ALL THE COUNTRIES INVOLVED INTO ONE AND THE SAME CLASS SCHEME THIS SURELY IS PROGRESS ALTHOUGH VALIDATION OF THE CLASS SCHEME BY WAY OF UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IS STILL OUT

9. HOWEVER, OTHER FORMS OF PROGRESS ARE MORE IMPORTANT Ganzeboom, Treiman and Ultee 1991 ascertained progress by considering the questions in three generations of mobility studies I now call the third generation the (POST-)CASMIN generation, coming after the Lipset generation and the Duncan generation PROGRESS WITH RESPECT TO THE QUESTIONS BEING ADDRESSED RIGHT NOW AND EARLIER ON PROGRESS WITH RESPECT TO THE THEORIES ADDUCED WHEN ASWERING EXPLANATORY QUESTIONS AND PROGRESS WITH RESPECT TO THEORY-GUIDED DATA COLLECTION WHICH IS MORE STRATEGIC THAN DATA PREPARATION AND DATA ANALYSIS

11. The CASMIN generation proposed as the new exemplary question How unequal is in a society at a certain point in time the outcome of the competition between persons from higher and lower origins for higher and lower destinations? This question amounts to an interesting move towards auxiliary assumptions about societies From sociology as aggregate psychology in the Lipset generation And cultural sociology in the Duncan generation To rigged-market sociology in the CASMIN generation

12. After the CASMIN generation came the Mayer-Blossfeld generation QUESTIONS LIKE HOW MUCH SOCIAL FLUIDITY IS THERE IN THE U.K. IN 1972? ARE FLAWED FLUIDITY REFERS TO THE MOVEMENT OF PERSONS BETWEEN TWO POINTS IN TIME WHICH UPSTAGES THE REFERENCE TO 1972 SOME PERSONS HAVE LIVED LONGER THAN OTHER PERSONS therefore A MOBILITY TABLE PERTAINS FOR SOME PERSONS TO A LONGER PERIOD THAN FOR OTHER PERSONS

13. The exemplary question of the Mayer-Blossfeld generation ARE FOR THE MEMBERS ASOME POINT IN TIME OF A SOCIETY’S POPULATION THE CHANCES FOR THE EVENT OF MOVING UPWARD OR DOWNWARD IN A CERTAIN ALWAYS EQUALLY LONG PERIOD NOT ONLY DEPENDENT UPON INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS LIKE AGE AND EDUCATION BUT ALSO UPON COHORT AND PERIOD CHARACTERISTICS?

14. ALTHOUGH THE MAYER-BLOSSFELD GENERATION COLLECTED OCCUPATIONAL HISTORIES, MAINLY SINGLE EVENTS WERE MODELLED WHERE ARE QUESTIONS ABOUT SERIES OF EVENTS OR CAREER TRAJECTORIES? POSSIBLE FIFTH GENERATION QUESTION IS AN OCCUPATIONAL CAREER A SELF-REINFORCING UPWARD PROCESS? WILL A PERSON WHO ONCE MOVED DOWN BE PERMANENTLY SCARRED? Does an effect of person’s first occupation in a second generation path model indicate self-reinforcement? How about duration dependency in event history models for person-period data? Which questions yields a close reading of Sennett’s stories about fragmented life histories?

16. THE BEST MACROHYPOTHESES AROUND NISBET 1966 THE SHIFT FROM AGRICULTURE TO INDUSTRY AND FROM AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY MAKES A SOCIETY’S STRATA MORE OPEN LENSKI 1966 TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS MAKES FOR MORE RIGID STRATIFICATION BUT WITH THE ADVENT OF INDUSTRIALISM RIGIDITIES ARE OFFSET BY SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC POLICIES

17. THE POST-CASMIN GENERATION NOW ADVOCATES MOVING FROM BLIND MACRO FACTORS TO RATIONAL INDIVIDUAL ACTORS IS THAT THE IMPORTANT NEW THING? WITH RESPECT TO CLASS MOBILITY THE MAYER –BLOSSFELD GENERATION ADVOCATED MOVING FROM QUESTIONS ABOUT VARYING TIME SPANS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT EQUALLY LONG PERIODS THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO BREAK DOWN VARYING TIME SPANS INTO EQUALLY LONG PERIODS! WITH RESPECT TO EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT THE FOURTH GENERATION - IN THE PERSON OF MARE - ADVOCATED DROPPING THE IDEA OF ONE-SHOT- DECISIONS AND ADOPTING THE IDEA OF A SEQUENCE OF DECISIONS

18. But as far as contexts goes The CASMIN generation and the Mayer-Blossfeld generation bypass communities Contexts are too macro, not enough micro, and there is no meso Macro contexts: cohort size, war, unemployment level as a time-varying covatiate More macro contexts: percent of the population disapproving of full-time working women with babies Micro contexts: mostly father and sometimes mother More micro contexts: spouse, siblings and children Meso contexts: school, neighbourhood, church and sportclub

19. * Individual sociology or aggregate psychology Individuals One goal One resource One shot decisions * ActorS sociology egos several goals several resources sequential decision processes collective actors present and origin household meso communities THEORIES SCHEMATIZED FOR DATA COLLECTION PURPOSES • * Macro factor sociology • - average income • general rise in • education • industrialization • democratization • - technology • - ideology After developing micro-explanations, How about deriving conditions under which Lenski and Nisbet macro hypotheses hold and do not hold?

21. Fifth generation theory driven data collection • Moments • Household history • Religious history • Educational history • Sport club history • Job history

22. Fifth generation theory driven data collection • Contexts • Municipalities • Neighbourhoods • Schools • Employers • Economic sectors • Sport clubs

23. Fifth generation theory driven data collection • Actors • Primary respondent • Partner • Parent • Child • Sibling

24. Dutch data collection to be turned into European Union data collection? • Multi-Moment data • Multi-Actor data • Multi-Context data 3MAC data This presentation has been posted at http://www.socsci.ru.nl/maw/sociologie/ultee/