ABSTRACT
Social mobility is a feature of all modern societies. In the course of a single generation many people change their class and status position. They move into a different social class as they change their relations to production. Industrial workers become capitalists, owners of the means of production, although less frequently than they did in the past. Small farmers and peasants move to the cities and become urban small businessmen or industrial workers. The first example is one of upward social mobility as between classes, the second example is one of horizontal (from rural petty-bourgeoisie to urban petty-bourgeoisie) or downward mobility (from independent farmer to industrial worker). Vertical social mobility, both upwards and downwards, is more characteristic of societies undergoing rapid capitalist development, as in Britain and the United States in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Horizontal social mobility becomes more noticeable in mature capitalism where educational standards are rising rapidly and where the intensification of the division of labour and professional specialization gives rise to many new occupations. Under these conditions many people move out of manual into white-collar jobs. They move their social status and often their sub-class position but not always their class position.
