Distinguish between intergenerational and intragenerational mobility.
Intergenerational and intragenerational mobility are concepts often used in the study of social mobility and economics to describe how individuals or families move up and down the socioeconomic ladder. Here are the distinctions between the two:
Intergenerational Mobility
Definition: Intergenerational mobility refers to changes in social or economic status between different generations within the same family. It measures how the position of children in the socioeconomic hierarchy compares to that of their parents or even grandparents when they were of similar age.
Example: If a woman grows up in a low-income household but as an adult earns a high income, she has experienced upward intergenerational mobility compared to her parents. Conversely, if a man grows up in a wealthy household but ends up earning a lower income than his parents did at the same age, he has experienced downward intergenerational mobility.
Significance: Intergenerational mobility is often used as an indicator of a society’s level of equality of opportunity. High intergenerational mobility suggests that individuals have relatively equal chances of success, regardless of their family background.
Intragenerational Mobility
Definition: Intragenerational mobility concerns the changes in an individual’s socioeconomic status throughout their own lifetime. This can be due to career progression, changes in employment, or other factors that cause someone’s income or status to rise or fall over the years.
Example: Consider a person who starts out in a low-paying job right after finishing school but gradually moves up the corporate ladder, eventually landing a high-paying executive position. This individual has experienced upward intragenerational mobility. On the other hand, a business owner who experiences significant financial loss due to market changes and has to downsize his lifestyle has experienced downward intragenerational mobility.
Significance: Intragenerational mobility provides insights into the fluidity of a society’s class structure within a single generation. It shows the extent to which individuals can change their economic status over their life course.
In summary, while both terms refer to changes in socioeconomic status, intergenerational mobility looks at changes between generations within a family, whereas intragenerational mobility looks at changes within an individual’s lifetime.