What do you mean by social mobility? Discuss the major sources and causes of mobility?
Answers
Answer:
It is when a person moves from a lower position in society to a higher one. It can also include people occupying higher positions in the same societal group. However, upward mobility, while seen as a good thing, can also come at a cost for individuals.
Explanation:
Mobility stands for shift, change and movement. The change may be of a place or from one position to another. Further, change is value free i.e it cannot be said that change is for good or bad. When we prefix ‘social’ along with mobility it would imply that people or individual occupying a social position, move to another position or status.
Social
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In the social ladder this movement may be upward or downward or it may be inter-generational or intra-generational. In short, social mobility stands for change in the position of an individual or a group of individuals from one status to another.
On mobility Sorokin was the first sociologist who wrote a book “Social and Cultural Mobility”. He was of the opinion that there is no society which is closed (Caste System in India) and no society which is completely open (Class System). He further contended that no two societies are exactly same in the amount of movement allowed or discouraged. Further the speed of movement or change may differ from one period of time to another. The rate of change depends upon the level of modernization of a given society.
As defined by Barber, social mobility refers to movement, either upward or downward between higher or lower social classes; or more precisely, movement between one relatively full time, functionally significant social role and another that is evaluated as either higher or lower.
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This movement is to be conceived as a process occurring over time, with individuals moving from one role and social class position to another because of what has happened to them in various kinds of social interaction. Mobility arises in social interaction, as each individual reacts to others in a changing series of social roles.
In this sense, mobility “provides the individual with more or less of the benefits which his economy and society have to offer.” A rickshaw puller’s son becomes a lawyer; a clerk’s son becomes a doctor. In each case, a change in role between father and son provides the latter with more of the good things of life.
The roles of lawyer, doctor and engineer require initiative, training and self- sacrifice. Persons are motivated according to a complex variety of factors to work toward new roles, with their higher status and greater rewards. The good things of life are scarce and individuals must compete, conflict and cooperate with others to gain them.
We tend to assume that social mobility is positive rather than a negative value and that an open society is preferable to a closed one. It is, however, not the case. A closed society, in which there is little social mobility, shelters the individual from the frustrations of unsuccessful competition. It does not encourage expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Furthermore, it protects a person from the strain of adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings.
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The mobile individual must constantly adapt to socially unfamiliar situations a new class, new norms, new values. A member of a closed society spends his life in an environment that is familiar to him. In other words, an open society, with its high degree of mobility, does not guarantee happiness.
On the other hand, a closed society, in which there is little social mobility, is not very likely to become a world leader. Heredity does not guarantee that the son of a capable and wise father will be equally capable and wise. A society that does not give talented people from the lower strata an opportunity to advance into positions of leadership will not fare well for long.
Mobility may be considered in different senses, such as:
(a) A change in occupation that involves a consequent change in status.
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(b) A promotion within the same occupational group.
(c) The accumulation of seniority within a given occupation.
(d) A change in occupation from one generation to another, as from father to son.