I am studying social work and I can’t seem to understand what social mobility is.
So basically, is social mobility when there is a link between someones occupation and income and their parents occupation and income meaning if someone’s parents has low income or occupation, their children get effected and are most likely to end up the same. ???
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Social Mobility is about making an educated guess about how likely it is that someone (an individual, a family, a whole community of people) is to be able to move up or down the “social ladder” of a country. In a country with low social mobility, wealthy people are going to stay wealthy, poor people are going to stay poor, and everyone else is more or less likely to stay where they are (sort of like what you are describing). In a country with high social mobility, there are more opportunities for people to move up (or maybe even down).
It’s usually not fair to talk about a whole population in one whole country, since different parts of the population will probably have different social mobility. Some might have easier access to higher education, others won’t. This might be because the cost of education is too high, or because the education system in the country only works in favor of people who are able to study and earn high grades in high school, and in a family where everyone has to work to make ends meet, the kids might not have a chance to study to earn those grades.
Income is a really common marker for it.
Education can be another one. Or health. Or race or gender. It depends a lot on the country and its different systems. Sometimes there is overlap between them.
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