Cenrality of occupation for social mobility

Abstract

The author recognises occupational dimension as a key determinant in social mobility which is also evident in the studies conducted both in India and in the West. It can yield deeper insights when the overall sociocultural matrix is taken into consideration. Giving significance to the dimension of occupation in mobility it helps in the understanding of the nature of contemporary mobile societies in terms of the systemic aspects of stratification on the one hand, and aspects of social transformation on the other. The issue is whether the occupational structures allow (or disallow) occupational deviations across and within generations. The paper attempts to reiterate the necessity of taking into consideration the social context of mobility. The author holds that the studies in the area have categorised social reality into unequally positioned layers, which have been correlated with occupations. Movement from one occupation to the other represents mobility from one layer to the other. However, occupational composition is not the only indicator of the nature and quality of social relationships.