Six-Class System: Intergenerational Mobility And Structural Mobility

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1. The class system ranks groups of people based on things such as education, wealth, and occupation. However, because there is so much variation between people, a framework is needed to form a consensus about who belongs to what class and why. The six-class system is the most widely used framework for that purpose. The six-class system is comprised of the upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, working class, and working poor (79). Each group is divided by education, occupation type, and income (78). The upper class includes individuals who have acquired wealth from “investments and inheritance,” and hold “top corporate positions.” Additionally, members of this class usually have an undergraduate degree, at the least, from highly …show more content…
Weberian tradition refers to the traditional way weber described and divided classes. Weber identified more classes that Marx and “Weber’s classification considered many occupational settings that vary widely in income, wealth, and life chances (31).” The similarities, particularly the emphasis of occupation, in the six-class system and Weber’s theory of class are very …show more content…
Different types of mobility can significantly impact some individuals chances of being upwardly or downwardly mobile. Intergenerational Mobility and Structural mobility can exemplify this fact. Intergenerational mobility “is a measure of social mobility” that compares a parent’s class location with that of their children. While, structural mobility refers to the impact technology or “institutional change” can have on the increase or decrease of jobs in a certain class (87). Structural mobility can often determine intergenerational mobility because innovation happens over time.
For example, globalization, an institutional change, has created a “downward intergenerational drift among young adults from middle-income (88).” Individuals cannot find jobs equivalent to their parents due to outsourcing and downsizing. As part of the aftershock of globalization, outsourcing and downsizing have lowed wages and terminated a number of job positions (88).” This is a prime example of how structural mobility can have a significant impact on intergenerational mobility and a person’s chances of being upwardly of downwardly

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