Social Class in the the New Millennium: increasing inequality of intergenerational life chances among women in Britain

Abstract

Traditional British social mobility research concerns once-for-all shifts from fathers' to sons' occupational class position. Here we replace categorical classes by human resources such as education, occupational attainment and employment experience, in a single numerical index representing each individual's ability to earn an income (whether or not they currently have a job). We can then look at the life-chances of the whole of the working-age population, and the interaction of this index with various life domains - family, employment, income. Mobility becomes a much larger, more interesting issue, embracing the whole lifecourse, allowing us to consider, for example, how women's prospects have been affected by changes in women's paid work, cohabitation, fertility, and divorce. This research, based on the BHPS, is part of the programme of the ESRC's Microsocial Change Centre at Essex University.