American Economic Association

Intergenerational Inequality: A Sociological Perspective Author(s): Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Summer, 2002), pp. 31-44 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3216948 . Accessed: 14/09/2012 20:31
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Journal

of Economic Perspectives?Volume

16, Number 3?Summer

2002?Pages

31-44

Intergenerational A Sociological

Inequality: Perspective

Robert

Erikson

and

John

H.

Goldthorpe

economists When

are concerned on the

with the inheritance

typically focus intergenerational wealth. In contrast, sociologists are more likely to analyze intergenera? tional mobility between (and immobility in) different class positions. One immediate is that while economists consequence usually work with inter? correlations of income or wealth treated as continuous variables, soci? generational ologists more often work with intergenerational patterns of association between class

of inequality, they or of income transmission

The standard that are treated categorically. positions a contingency table in which class "origin" is crossed former the variable time

data array takes the form of with class "destination." The

variable, reliability

is usually indexed "head" at by class of father or other household of a child's?that the latter is, the survey respondent's?adolescence; by the child's (respondent's) present class or class at time of inquiry. The with which father's class can be established in survey interviews has been with reasonably satisfactory results (Hope,

subject to a good deal of investigation Schwartz and Graham, 1986; Breen and Jonsson, 1997) and is in any event more accessible than father's income. The child's, or respondent's, class at time of is of not course and worklife or fixed, mobility inquiry significant intragenerational does occur. But it is known that the frequency of such mobility falls off rather sharply after around some times restricted The difference age 35, and intergenerational to respondents over this age. in approach between sociologists mobility tables are therefore

and economists

have studied intergenerational social ever, absolute. Sociologists basis of correlations of parents' and children's "socioeconomic status" scores and Duncan, 1967; Featherman and Hauser, 1978). Following the pioneering

is not, howmobility on the (Blau work

? Robert Erikson is Professor of Sociology, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm, Sweden. John H. Goldthorpe is Offcial Fellow, Nujfield College, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom.

32

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

of Atkinson, adopted

Maynard

and Trinder table methods

contingency ity, using income quantile groups Machin and Reed, 1997; Hertz, 2001). Bjorklund and Jantti (2000, p. 24) have in fact recently called for further work of this kind, applying "more flexible measures in place of correlation on the following of association" coefficients, (or regression) no that the association "There a reasons to believe are, grounds: priori, good between over e.g. the income incomes is the same throughout, and Trinder Atkinson, (1983, Maynard p. 180) also make the range is to a table able that bring out important important point contingency approach in instance, asymmetries long-range upward movements mobility patterns?for correlation or re? being offset by more gradual "trickling down processes"?that coefficients cannot capture. gression fathers' and sons' of fathers."

have of late (1983), several other economists in analyzing intergenerational income mobil? as their categories Dearden, (for example,

Operationalizing

Class

If the inheritance crucial

question the concept and made operational. As an initial point here, we would distinguish of class from that of "socioeconomic status," which has been widely used in American social science?and as the basis for constructing sometimes occupational rather than an interval-level scale. categories relations We would regard class positions as being determined by employment see Erikson and Goldthorpe, 2; statements, 1992, chapter (for more detailed 2000, chapter 10). Thus, a primary division is that among employers, Goldthorpe, who make up the large workers and employees. However, employees, self-employed of modern societies, majority of the workforces require further differentiation, to consistent way by reference which can, we believe, be provided in a theoretically The problems the mode of regulation of their employment. face, employers of employment contracts and ultimately on account of the essential incompleteness in regard to work monitoring more immediately and human asset specificity, lead of significantly who are form being offered to employees differing con? kinds of These from the "labor to out different work. range engaged carry tract," a simple recurrent spot contract for the purchase of a quantity of labor on the basis of piece or time rates, via various modified or mixed forms, through to the of a longer term and more diffuse kind in which "service relationship," an exchange for service to the employing involves important procompensation organization of employ? as of such elements, increments, salary continuity spective expectations ment or at least of employability and promotion prospects and career opportunities. of A class schema, as indicators status and occupation using employment in lines be on the shown can then drawn relations, employment general up Table 1. Versions of this schema mobility, have in fact been sociological intergenerational and in other widely applied in studies of research, since the 1980s, and to contracts

of inequality is treated in terms of class mobility, an obviously of class is to be understood that arises is that of how the concept

Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe

33

Table 1 The Class Schema Class I. II. Illa. Illb. IVa. IVb. rVc. V. VI. Vlla. Vllb. Status OccupationalGrouping/Employment Professionals, administrators and managers, higher-grade Professionals, administrators and managers, lower-grade; technicians, higher-grade Routine nonmanual employees, higher grade Routine nonmanual employees, lower-grade Small employers Self-employed workers (nonprofessional) Farmers Technicians, lower grade; supervisors of manual workers Skilled manual workers Nonskilled manual workers (other than in agriculture) Agricultural workers

Regulationof Employment service relationship service relationship (modified) mixed labor contract (modified)

mixed labor contract (modified) labor contract labor contract

the schema statistical differences

is now attracting increasing agencies as a basis for official

interest social

from

national

and international

classifications.1

It is important to note that since the schema aims to capture qualitative in employment the classes are not consistently relations, distinguished ordered according to some inherent hierarchical such as, say, the "gen? principle, eral desirability" of the positions Their members they comprise. may be relatively in or different routine nonmanual advantaged ways. Thus, disadvantaged employ? ees in Class Illa may have lower average incomes than do small shopkeepers in Class IVb or technicians the former and foremen chances and better in Class V, but more stable levels of income than of promotion than the latter. in Classes economic status is concerned, individuals

However, so far as overall I and II, representing the "service class" or "salariat," could in fact be regarded as in Classes Illb, VI and Vlla and Vllb, repre? over individuals generally advantaged the at least three in class, senting working ways that follow directly from the mode of regulation of their employment and that, together, we would see as being of at least comparable to current income alone. Members of the salariat are importance over members of the working class in that they experience i) greater advantaged of income less to lose their long-term security jobs and to through being likely become unemployed; ii) less short-term (week-to-week or month-to-month) fluctu-

1 The schema has become known as either the EGP (Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero) or CASMIN (Comparative Analysis of Social Mobility in lndustrial Nations) schema, the latter being the name of a project directed from the University of Mannheim by Walter Miiller and John Goldthorpe from 1984-1990. Since 2000, a new instantiation of the schema has in fact been adopted as the official British social classification under the (somewhat unfortunate) name of the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification, and active consideration is presently been given to the use of the schema as the basis for a general European Union social classification. One valuable spin-off of such official interest is that resources have been made available to test the validity of the schema: that is, the extent to which, as implemented via information on employment status and occupation, it does in fact capture the kinds of differences in employment relations that it is conceptually supposed to capture. The results of such tests have been generally encouraging (for Britain, see Rose and O'Reilly, 1997, 1998).

34

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

ation

overtime

on piece rates, shift premiums, through being less dependent less to loss and of exposed pay on account of absence or illness; payments and iii) better prospects of steadily increasing income over the life course?into their 50s rather than their 30s?through contracts that are having employment conducive to an upward-sloping age-earnings profile of wealth.2 prospects for the accumulation (Lazear, 1995) with in turn

of income

better

are last point that needs to be made here is the following. Sociologists in class and class mobility not only as dependent, but also as indepen? interested with other variables: ones that can be set in competition dent, or explanatory, One variables, variation income indicated though, capture income and income mobility, in their capacity to account for including in a wide range of life chances (say, health) and life choices (like political tend to persist even when partisanship). Empirically, class effects on such outcomes is controlled. above, we believe important serves on the lines class, as operationalized In addition, for income. permanent proxy from the that its explanatory fact that it is able to power stems life. aspects of the social relations of economic It is possible as a good that

Analyzing

Class

Mobility

between class origins and class destinations, soci? the association often odds For the most use the ratio. ologists simplest possible mobility table, that with only two classes of origin and destination, say class 1 and class 2, the one calculable odds ratio is given by AA ratio f = /ll//l2 odds , -?77721//22 in cell (1,1), that referring to immobility within class 1, where /n is the frequency in cell (1,2), that referring to mobility from class 1 to class 2, f12 is the frequency for an individual and so on. So in this case, the odds ratio gives the chances in in 1 in 1 class class found class rather than 2, relative to the originating being same chances their statistical The association odds for an individual the absence of 1 thus indicates in class 2. An odds ratio with the value originating of association between origins and destinations (or because it is a "margin insensitive" measure of it is means that invariant which 1975),

To measure

independence). ratio is attractive

(Bishop, to the multiplication In an intergenerational constant. association ences between in the overall

table by a (nonzero) of a contingency what table, mobility might be called the gross and destination be conditioned class class will by differ? origin of these variables?the of distributions distributions marginal

Fienberg and Holland, of any row or column

2 Moreover, even insofar as the classes cannot be perfectly ordered, we do not believe that this makes the question of mobility between them irrelevant to issues of equality of opportunity and social justice. For discussion of this point, see Marshall, Swift and Roberts (1997, appendix E).

Intergenerational

Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

35

the table?that of individuals found in different reflect changes in the proportions class positions For example, in the course of economic across generations. devel? fathers will become more will fewer children than but become farmers, opment, and professional Thus, some intergenerational managerial mobility will employees. of necessity occur in the form of outflow from the class of farmers and inflow to that of managers and professionals. For many purposes, this mobility will be of interest in itself.3 But odds ratios provide a measure of the association of origins and destinations that is net of the effects of such class structural change and that can therefore remain can alter even when In mobility be calculable?in relation even when such change is extensive or, conversely, that such change is absent.4 tables with more than two categories, more than one odds ratio will constant

in fact, one for every possible pair of origin categories considered to every pair of destination the number of odds ratios Thus, categories. ? k)2]/4, implicit in a square mobility table with k categories will be given by [(k2 al though it can be shown that a "basic set" of (k ? 1)2 odds ratios can be specified that will determine the remainder (Goodman, 1979). The full set of odds ratios implicit in a mobility table is taken to constitute the the of social "endogenous mobility regime" or, alternatively, underlying "pattern about endogenous fluidity." For testing substantive mobility regimes, hypotheses or logmultiplicative of which are odds ratios or models, the parameters loglinear functions 1992). that odds Such ratios, are chiefly used (Hout, 1983; Erikson and Goldthorpe, can serve to represent hypotheses?for particular example, in a society over a period of time or are the same ratios are unchanged models of societies, or that they change or differ in particular ways?and models to the actual data of mobility tables can then be assessed of odds

across a number the fit of selected via standard When

procedures. the main empirical features of endogenous mobility regimes have been established shifts to the actual processes of mobility that underlie and attention these regimes, models for the of data loglinear mobility tables can be grouped rewritten models for individual-level data (Lologistic regression variable, and class origin gan, 1983; Breen, 1994). Class position is the dependent also including, for example, variables figures as one of a set of independent measures of individual IQ, effort, educational and other relevant vari? attainment ables. It thus becomes leads in the analysis of such variables how far the inclusion possible to examine on class of origin to the dependence of class of destination as multinomial

statistical

Sociologists do in fact analyze outflow and inflow rates in simple percentage terms: that is, by considering the percentage distribution of all individuals of a given class of origin across all destination classes or, conversely, the distribution of all individuals in a given class of destination across all origin classes. But it is important to distinguish these "absolute" mobility rates from the "relative" rates captured by odds ratios. 4 The motivation here could be thought of as somewhat similar to that behind the Galton measure of intergenerational correlation in income, which normalizes for changes in the mean and standard deviation of the income distribution over time. When intergenerational income mobility is studied via a contingency table approach, using income quantile groups as the categories, the problem of control? ling differing marginal distributions obviously does not arise.

36

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

being reduced meritocratic.

or, in other

words,

how far mobility

regimes

may be thought

of as

Results or regres? mobility through correlation typically do, leads to results that can be very to the mobility results relating that concisely expressed. Sociologists' regimes more is the within class structures are since it that operate complex, supposed association between class origins and destinations may vary in strength across the economic most cells of the mobility component tion to another. This supposition table?that

Measuring intergenerational sion coefficients, as economists

transi? is, from one intergenerational turns out in fact to be fully warranted, so what is lost in parsimony is gained in realism. With, then, some degree of simplification, the main findings from recent as research could be summarized sociological follows. First, in all modern and class of destination associations between class of origin significant For at there is a broad men, least, similarity in prevail. an interesting mobility regimes across societies.5 This represents endogenous parin estimates of the extent of intergenera? allel with the cross-national similarities societies, tional income

and Jannti (2000, p. 4, n. 4). Some mobility noted by Bjorklund in variation specific nationally mobility regimes is also apparent; but, within this in the overall level of the origin-destination differences as association, variation, to its is one?in fact rather minor?element. opposed pattern, only Consequently, or nations more social fluidity or no nation stand out as showing decisively openness than the rest. The idea of American exceptionalism in this regard is a 1985, 1992, chapter myth (Erikson and Goldthorpe, advanced Sweden appears as the most open, societies, 9). Among economically but has still to be seen as

rather than being in marking one end of a quite limited range of differentiation sense sui any generis. in mobility the main features of the cross-national Second, commonality the There is a for class are regimes following. general propensity intergenerational of what might be called class-specific inheritance immobility through the operation effects. These effects are relatively strong within Classes I and II, the salariat, and Classes IVa and IVb, small employers and self-employed workers, and strongest of for all within Class IVc, that of farmers. In addition, there is a general propensity mobility to be reduced by "hierarchy" effects deriving from the overall advantages and disadvantages associated with different class positions (as discussed above). These effects especially operate between Classes I and II, on the one hand, and Classes Vlla and Vllb, the nonskilled division of the working class, on the other. To

Although it has not so far been demonstrated, we would think it highly probable that such a result will hold for women, also. The mobility regimes for men and women within particular nations have repeatedly been shown to differ little?apart from the fact that odds ratios for women overall tend to be slightly lower than for men.

Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe

37

of the importance of class inheritance and hierarchy effects indication in the odds of a man salariat the together, originating being himself found in the salariat rather than in the nonskilled to the same odds for a relative working class, man originating in the nonskilled working class, would, across modern societies, be of the order Third, of 15:1.6 within of show a high degree societies, mobility regimes particular in some cases, such as Great Britain (Goldthorpe, constancy over time, and Payne and Llewellyn, or Japan (Ishida, 1995), and Mills, forthcoming) 1987; Goldthorpe for periods extending back to the first half of the twentieth century. Loglinear models no change in odds ratios reproduce that postulate the empirical data less than 5 percent of all individuals in the remarkably well, usually misclassifying mobility tables analyzed. In societies where trends in the overall level of fluidity can generally well as being slight, would seem more States (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992, than as in France sustained, (Vallet, forthcoming). ing) and secular movement toward greater societal openness be discerned, ratios moving these are more closer often in the direction to 1?than of increasing fluidity?odds of decreasing fluidity. But such trends, as often to be episodic as, say, in the United forthcom? chapter 9) or Sweden (Jonsson, The idea of a worldwide has been mooted

give some

(Ganzeboom, Luijkx and Treiman, 1989), but this is scarcely borne out by the evidence so far accumulated. An alternative is that the level of social fluidity will hypothesis relate to the of economic inversely degree inequality between classes (Erikson and does 1992, chapter 11; Goldthorpe, 2000, chapter 11). This hypothesis Goldthorpe, in fact find support from one of the very few studies of trends in intergenerational income mobility so far carried out (Blanden et al., 2001). attainment is a major?probably the major?mediating Fourth, educational factor in class mobility (Ishida, Muller and Ridge, 1995; Marshall, Swift and Robis measured by highest erts, 1997), al though this is more apparent when education

level of qualification years of education case, the tradition of IQ and of effort

or vocational) rather than by number of (academic as is usual the American completed, practice.7 In the British of birth cohort studies provides data sets that allow for the effects achieved

on motivation as measured (in the sense at least of academic of The to be with education. that scales) psychological reliably compared latter proves to be clearly stronger, and further, the effects of IQ and effort appear to operate largely via educational at all events so far as the mediation attainment, standard of early life mobility 1999). Fifth, tional modern societies are not meritocracies "merit" variables in the sense are controlled, qualifications and other that, once educa? class of destination (up to around age 30) is concerned (Breen and Goldthorpe,

6 Sector

effects, operating between the classes of farmers and agricultural workers and the rest, reduce propensities for mobility still more strongly than do hierarchy effects and were indeed a major feature of the mobility regimes of many modern societies even up to the middle decades of the twentieth century, although they are by now of much reduced importance overall. 7 The standardized measure that is chiefly used here is the CASMIN educational classification (Konig, Luttinger and Miiller, 1988; Brauns and Steinmann, 1999).

38

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

is no longer dependent on class of origin. To the contrary, a significant and often substantial remains and Breen and Swift Roberts, 1997; (Marshall, dependence In some for the effect 1999, 2001). cases, Goldthorpe, example, Sweden, persisting of class origins has been shown to extend to income, also (Erikson and Jonsson, of and Goldthorpe have put it (1999, p. 21): "Children more class have to merit indicated educational [as disadvantaged by origins display/#r or by IQ and effort] than do children of more advantaged attainment origins in order to attain similar class positions." 1998). Thus, as Breen from role of education in its importance varies significantly Sixth, the mediating one type of intergenerational transition to another. Thus, educational qualifications have been shown to be of no importance at all in mediating intergenera? tional immobility within any of the subdivi(for which there is a high propensity) sions of Class IV: that is, among small employers, workers or farmers self-employed Miiller is and crucial here the direct intergen? What (Ishida, Ridge, 1995). appears of "going concerns" erational transmission or of economic capital in other forms?a in this issue also find important for the in several studies now Further, intergenerational progress in "long-range" are of greater importance suggest that educational qualifications upward mobility?as, say, from working-class origins into the salariat?than they are in intergenerational within the salariat (for example, Guzzo, 2002). immobility Here in particular, the advantages of a disaggregated, table approach contingency factor that Bowles income and Gintis correlation. can be seen. Effects

that bear on mobility from specific origins to specific destina? rules tions can show up in a way that would not be possible if the same regression were simply assumed to apply across the board.

Problems

and

Prospects in part related, that we would

There

recognize, The first is what Bowles half ables of their income

are at least two outstanding problems, with Bowles and Gintis. along and Gintis for coefficient

for even when all conventional vari? explanatory is less in the analysis. We in fact believe that the situation clear?and worse?than Bowles and Gintis suppose, since we would possibly the of heredity whether their efforts to disentangle relative importance question and also of direct transfers and environment of assets warrant such precise are included estimates For difference identical effects, Bowles more as they venture. a key example, and since similar assumption their estimates is that the underlying of earnings or income between correlations of genetic be indicative of the importance share the same environmental conditions.

preferred remains unaccounted

More than call the "black box" problem. of the intergenerational transmission

in the intergenerational fraternal twins will twins of both kinds

and Gintis

do acknowledge that environments may in fact be somewhat for identical than for fraternal twins; but, we would argue, there is

Intergenerational

Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

39

more lead

often symbiotic between relation identical twins will to keep together, while fraternal twins may actively seek to themselves from each other. Thus, identical twins may follow the distinguish same education, not because their genetic make-up leads them both to choose them to strive

to it than

that. The

and the same wish may it, but simply because they do not want to be separated; likewise influence their family life, place of residence and other factors.8 If one twin gets a job offer, he or she may not take it in order to avoid identical and/or social, from the other twin. Now the more equal separation, geographic in that are thus likely to result among identical conditions, income, including twins are certainly linked to the fact that they have the same genes. But how can the effect in question be generalized to the population at large?9 are any better placed However, we would not wish to claim that sociologists than economists understanding for sociolo? Indeed, in one respect, the problem appears even more embarrassing that the part that is played in gists. Of late, a number of studies have indicated class mobility by educational attainment?our most intergenerational if conventional variable?is important explanatory anything, declining (for Sweden, see Jonsson, and 1992; for Britain, Breen and Goldthorpe, 2001; and Goldthorpe for France, Vallet, forthcoming; and for Ireland, Whelan and Mills, forthcoming; mediating Layte, 2002).10 We are, then, led strongly to agree with Bowles we will need to examine problem is to be overcome, inheritance and Gintis that if the black box as regards to the black box problem?that of the association between class of origin is, as it arises in their and class of destination.

the possible importance in the of inequality of a wider range of individual attributes than has so far been considered with cognitive and, in particular, to be less exclusively concerned abilities and with skills, at least as usually understood. We find much of interest in their suggestions effects on economic success and regarding "group membership" what they elsewhere elaborate as the effects of "incentive enhancing preferences" (Bowles and Gintis, 2001). However, we would also want to take further than Bowles and Gintis a more direct, demand-side that is, asking just what are the approach: attributes of potential that employers are looking for and how these employees desiderata might In modern be changing. there economies, would appear to be, at virtually all levels of the

8 Ashenfelter and Krueger (1994, p. 1159), on whose work Bowles and Gintis chiefly rely, do in fact note that identical twins far more often studied together and were also somewhat less often married than fraternal twins. 9 It could further be argued that models such as that used by Bowles and Gintis, in which the effects of heredity and environment are treated as simply additive, are misspecified. Evidence is now available (Maccoby, 2000) of interaction effects between hereditary factors and parental childbearing regimes, analogous to those that have for long been demonstrated between genes and environment in the case of various plants, fruit flies and so on. 10When such results are reported, economists usually react with some surprise or even skepticism on the grounds that earnings returns to education are tending to increase. However, apart from the fact that there is no necessary inconsistency here, for at least some of the countries referred to in the text, the evidence of such increasing returns is not all that compelling. For example, for France, see Baudelot and Glaude (1989); and for Britain, see Chevalier and Walker (2001).

40

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

to as "peoplean increasing range of what have been referred somewhat more occupations?obvious processing" cynically, "high-touch" in and hospitality industries, growth areas being in the leisure, entertainment public relations and the media and in the personalized selling of high-value goods class structure, or, and services. In occupations of this kind, employers may well view cognitive abilities some threshold skills as being of less relevance than (above level) and conventional lifesuch attributes as physical appearance, dress sense, accent, self-presentation, skills.11 For style and savoir faire, along with related "social" or "interpersonal" at least, there is some amount of supporting evidence for this speculation and from preliminary results from both the content analysis of job advertisements case studies (Jackson, and Mills, 2002; 2001; Jackson, Goldthorpe organizational Warhurst and Nickson, 2001). Insofar as such a shift in the pattern of employers' is in train, an requirements Britain follows. Increasing economic value now attaches to individ? important implication kind ual attributes of a less likely to be achieved through the educational system than ascribed through processes of socialization within generally more advantaged In turn, a possible explanation is indicated for both the families and communities. of gap that arises if we seek to account for the patterning and for the fact that education mobility regimes solely in terms of education plays a greater part in accounting for upward mobility into more advantaged classes than for intergenerational with within these classes.12 Men and women immobility (apparently widening) class backgrounds advantaged acquire, more or less as a matter of course, attributes that help them maintain their position even if their educational attainments are only modest. The second rather limited that we share with Bowles and Gintis is raised by the problem success of public policy aimed at reducing intergenerational inequal? that of explaining plays a lesser specifically, why, even if education such reform than is often supposed, the massive expansion inequality in modern of educational institutions societies has not start from two further sets of empirical that show that

ity and, more role in mediating and often radical had a more

evident

In addressing results and a conceptual distinction. in most societies, class differentials highly reform, if these odds of children "transitions" Mare, 1980, resistant to change, differentials of different even

outcome. egalitarian this problem, we would

The first set of results are those in educational across decades attainment of educational

have in fact proved and expansion

are understood

and modeled

in terms of the relative

class origins making or not making the successive which educational careers are defined (Blossfeld and Shavit, 1993; by and Breen 1981; 2000). Jonsson,

11On this issue, we would add that the repeated references of Bowles and Gintes to "good looks" as genetically transmitted seems to miss the point that "good looks" are, at least in some large part, a social construct, modeled on the example of superior classes or status groups. 12Other alternative or complementary explanations for this development could of course be proposed: for example, that, as a consequence of the expansion of educational provision and of the growing numbers of individuals who have qualifications of some kind at all levels, the value of education in both signalling by potential employees and in screening by employers is reduced.

Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe

41

The conceptual due to Boudon distinction, (1974), is between the "primary" and the "secondary" effects that are at work in this regard. Primary effects are those, whether genetic or cultural, that create class differentials in "demonstrated ability" educational careers and in this way condition the options early in children's subsequently the choices among The effects tials open to them. Secondary effects are those that later operate through that children, with their parents, actually make together perhaps the options they have available. second do in fact set of empirical results a role play significant attainment?and then in the serves to show that of class secondary differen?

persistence an obvious focus for represent These from research undertaken within a variety results, policy interventions. of national educational see Goldthorpe, (for full references, 1996), systems in educational in turn reveal of more that even when level advantaged for instance, stay on rather than do children tional courses?than Sweden school, in the about early twice as many entered academic 1990s, class of demonstrated take more origins leave of less children ability is held constant, ambitious educational options? or choose academic rather than voca?

For example, in advantaged origins. children with in among average grades primary from Class I backgrounds as from Class VI and VII

tracks in secondary school and (Erikson backgrounds 1996, p. 77). Jonsson, We are therefore to the argument entirely sympathetic put forward by Bowles and Gintis that the intergenerational of differences in educational persistence attainment results, at least in some important part, from actions taken by parents and offspring under the influence of a range of subjective dispositions or traits, such as attitudes to risk, orientations to the future and sense of personal efficacy, that themselves tend to be intergenerationally From such a position, a transmitted. number of sociologists have in fact developed models of educational choice (in some cases to a formal level) and of mobility strategies, in which ideas of risk the discounting of future rewards and belief in returns to effort and of success all 1996; Goldthorpe, 1996; probabilities figure (Erikson and Jonsson, Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997; Breen, 1999, 2001; Goldthorpe, 2000, chapter 11; Jonsson and Erikson, 2000).13 aversion, more However, detailed our class structural and differentiated allows us, we believe, to give a rather approach account than Bowles and Gintis offer in this issue

of the social

of these dispositions that help preserve inequality across grounding Bowles and Gintis that be more observe "less well-off likely generations. people may to be risk averse, to discount the future and have a low sense of efficacy" (p. 18) than the better-off. However, children from less advantaged origins may have good

13The model advanced by Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) has been subjected to various attempts at empirical testing, the most sophisticated of which, setting hypotheses derived from this model against ones derived from the "linear social distance" approach of Akerlof (1997), is by Davies, Heinesen and Holm (forthcoming). The development of this model by Breen (2001) is also of interest in suggesting a behavioral basis for the models of educational transitions proposed by Mare (1980, 1981), in response to the critique of Cameron and Heckman (1998).

42

Journal

of Economic Perspectives

reasons across

to avoid classes

in this emphasize p. 364). in the differences not differences current levels of income but, further, respect only identified as the in economic that we previously security, stability and prospects It is notable, for example, that main sources of class advantage and disadvantage. 2000 We would children of Class Illa levels of educational (routine attainment families are regularly found to have nonmanual) more similar to those of Class I and II families than class) families, even though in average income,

high-risk alternatives, and Erikson, (Jonsson

even

if risk aversion

is equally

distributed

to those of Class VI (skilled working they are much closer to the latter. In addition, young people we would pursue the "structural"

and occupational see the specific educational goals that in their class as being likewise best understood relation to

origins, following Zavalloni (1964) aspiration those holding

theory of aspirations initially set out by Keller and and developed levels of (1974). From this standpoint, by Boudon of are to be assessed not in absolute terms but relative to the positions them. Instead

in aspira? of the emphasis being on class differences tions, it comes rather to be placed on the shared priority within all classes that children should achieve educational levels and class positions not less desirable than avoid downward or, in other words, should mobility.14 of less advantaged class back? be the case with children However, grounds that the safest strategy to this end?for example, opting for a vocational not best rather than an academic course that carries higher risks of failure?is those of their parents it may then suited to achieving upward mobility. has important In sum, intergenerational self-maintaining inequality in less advantaged under which individuals ties. It creates conditions properpositions

be understood as adaptively quite and act in ways that can in themselves of the subcultures) (rather than, say, being yet "dysfunctional" expression and the status quo. Educational which, in aggregate, serve to perpetuate expansion to serve as very effective instrureform alone should not therefore be expected choose rational ments of public policy aimed at creating greater of "a more level playing field." Complementary condition, prospects, and especially class will also be required. inequalities in the sense equality of opportunity of efforts to reduce inequalities in economic security, stability and

? We are indebted to Tony Atkinson, Anders Bjorklund, Richard Breen, Adam Swift and the editors for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

14One could alternatively talk, as in Breen and Goldthorpe (1997), of equal relative risk aversion across classes, and there is an obvious affinity with the "prospect theory" of Kahneman and Tversky (1979), according to which the slope of utility curves is greater in the domain of losses than in the domain of gains.

Intergenerational

Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

43

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