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/

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

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

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

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

SECOND

IF A REGULARITY PERTAINS TO SOCIETIESITS 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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

* Individual sociology or * Individual sociology or aggregate psychologyaggregate psychology

– IndividualsIndividuals– One goalOne goal– One resourceOne resource– One shot decisionsOne shot decisions

* * ActorS sociologyActorS sociology

– egosegos– several goalsseveral goals– several resourcesseveral resources– sequential decision sequential decision

processesprocesses– collective actorscollective actors– present and origin present and origin

householdhousehold– meso communitiesmeso communities

* Macro factor * Macro factor sociologysociology

- average income- average income- general rise ingeneral rise in

educationeducation

- industrializationindustrialization- democratizationdemocratization

- technology- technology- ideology- ideology

THEORIES SCHEMATIZED FOR DATA COLLECTION PURPOSES

After developing micro-explanations, How about deriving conditions under which

Lenski and Nisbet macro hypotheses hold and do not hold?

Fifth generation theory driven data Fifth generation theory driven data collectioncollection

MomentsMoments– Household historyHousehold history– Religious historyReligious history– Educational historyEducational history– Sport club historySport club history– Job historyJob history

Fifth generation theory driven data Fifth generation theory driven data collectioncollection

ContextsContexts– MunicipalitiesMunicipalities– NeighbourhoodsNeighbourhoods– SchoolsSchools– EmployersEmployers– Economic sectorsEconomic sectors– Sport clubsSport clubs

Fifth generation theory driven data Fifth generation theory driven data collectioncollection

ActorsActors– Primary respondentPrimary respondent– PartnerPartner– ParentParent– ChildChild– SiblingSibling

Dutch data collection to be turned Dutch data collection to be turned into European Union data collection?into European Union data collection?

MMulti-ulti-MMoment dataoment data

MMulti-ulti-AActor datactor data

MMulti-ulti-CContext dataontext data

33MACMAC data data

This presentation has been posted at http://www.socsci.ru.nl/maw/sociologie/ultee/