The dynamics of social position: Allerednic and her parents’ human capital -abstract-

Abstract

Using a BHPS-derived human capital measure as a social positional index:
1. Observing whole life-course dynamics (corresponds to intergenerational perspective).
2. Deploying “moral narratives”: flat descriptions of sequences of states or activities (Abbott, Chan & Halpin).
3. Focusing on interaction between life strategies and inherited social position.
4. Taking poor Allerednic (reverse Cinderella, princess scullerymaid) as a key example.

NEW FINDING: penalties for leaving workforce after birth of first child relative to staying, interact with women’s parents’ class situation:
1. For women with parents in top human capital quintile, relative penalties were falling from the 1930s to 1950s birth cohorts, to around 20%.
2. For women with parents in bottom quintile, relative penalties rising from 1920s to 1950s birth cohorts, from 50% to 75% 7 yrs after birth.

Conclude: (gendered) polarisation in intergenerational transmission of life chances……and the effect of this is intensified by the concurrent rise in marital dissolution.