ABSTRACT
Studies of social mobility in Israel are still relatively rare. Moreover, few of those that have been undertaken have viewed mobility in a class structural context, and attempts that have been made to compare rates and patterns of mobility in Israel with those found in other nations have relied chiefly on data from the 1950s, restricted to the Jewish population (e.g., Matras 1963; Zloczower 1973). So far as we are aware, the one previous paper of immediate relevance to our present concerns is that by Tyree, Semyonov, and Hodge (1979), in which the authors report on an analysis of intergenerational class mobility in twenty-four nations, among which Israel was included on the basis of data from a 1974 survey. In fact, Israel emerged from this analysis in a position of some distinction: it appeared as the most fluid or “open” nation of all those represented. It has to be said, however, that while the study in question retains much theoretical interest, the quality of its data falls short of current standards and its analytical techniques have by now been superseded. 1
