The Impact of Class and Status. Intergenerational Mobility in Sweden 1865-2015

Elien van Dongen, Lund University

Social stratification research addresses the broad question of how social environment affects stratification outcomes. Max Weber (1978) differentiated “status” or social prestige as primarily defined by social relations, from “class” as primarily defined by economic relations. Occupational class increasingly defines social stratification as formal employment expands, but in pre-industrial or early-industrial societies where families form a productive unit with informal labor relations – such as Sweden until about 1900, “class” may be a less relevant dimension of social stratification. Weberian “status”, in the form of ascribed group belonging, was the predominant mode of social stratification in most pre-industrial European societies. While land holdings formed the main source of economic distinction, marriage patterns were strongly associated with such ascribed status – as we show for nineteenth century Sweden. Initial status groups were the nobility, the clergy, bourgeoisie, farmers and ‘estateless’. During the nineteenth century the bourgeoisie expanded and came to include a wider variety of high-status positions. We study the role of occupational class and pre-industrial status of both fathers and mothers since the beginning of industrialization, and assess whether – in line with modernization theory – intergenerational transmission of ascribed forms of status decreased in importance while transmission of occupational class (achieved) increased in importance with modernization. We ask whether pre-industrial status still impacts the social structure in twentieth and twenty-first century Sweden and address whether our indicator of such status, surname type, is complementary to occupational class in explaining intergenerational persistence of social stratification. Importantly, the combined use of occupational class and ascribed status give us the possibility to study the changing role of women in intergenerational transmission processes. The study addresses the role of assortative mating and interactions between status and class. Full-count linked censuses and register data covering the period 1880-2016 and including occupational information are used.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 45. Long Term Studies on Intergenerational Effects on Mobility and Fertility