ABSTRACT
Until recent years mobility researchers in the British Isles have justified the absence of women in mobility and class studies on the grounds of their derivative status either from a father or husband (Heath, 1981). As more and more women participate in paid employment in the British Isles as well as in North America this justification has become increasingly untenable. As in the area of class analysis, the whole question of occupational mobility and attainment, especially in relation to female intergenerational occupational mobility, still begs to be answered for women. With some exceptions (e.g., Abbott and Sapsford, 1987; Dex, 1987; Hayes, 1987; Goldthorpe and Payne, 1986; Payne et al., 1983), the empirical study of this issue has remained ignored by British and Irish sociologists.
