Page 145 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes Several occupations provide points for both upward and downward mobility, acting as
source occupations for those changing either to the managerial and technical classes or to the
manual classes, and as destination occupations for those leaving managerial posts or manual
jobs. Shop work is one such for women, and slaes work serves similarly, but to a lesser
extent for men. These occupations are particularly important because they provide mobility
over the divide between manual and non-manual work for men.
A comparison of the magnitudes of the residulas in the tables for the male and female full-
timers (Tables 7.2 and 7.4) indicates that the flows between classes for the female occupational
structure more closely resemble the quasi-independence model than the flows for the males,
suggesting that the structuring of the labour market is more pronounced for men than for
women. On the other hand, the women are concentrated in certain classes (40 per cent are in
Class 5, clerical, and none are in Class 6, craft,) while the men are spread more evenly. These
two aspects of the class structure can be summarized by saying that in comparison to men,
women tend to be confined to certain classes, but move more readily between them, there
being lower barriers to class mobilitly within these confines than appears to be the case for
men.

Self-Assessment
Fill in the blanks
1. Dumont in his famous work ............. consider special type of inequality.
2. The main classes of today are
(a) Agrarian (b) Industrial and professional
(c) Business and mercantile (d) All of these
3. Caste and class both are the forms of social.............
4. Caste has became a liability on ............. people because of reservation policy of government for
the lower caste people.
5. The demand for a separate nation based on religion or .............

7.4 Summary

• By examining the extent of mobility between classes observed over a short period of time,
the major divisons within the class structure have been traced for men and for women.
However, the analysis still needs further development in a number of directions. For instance,
the data allow only an investigation of mobility between classes defined in terms of market
situation. In particular, the LFS data do not provide detailed information on either individuals’
tasks and positions within the labour process, or their wider social relationships or class
consciousness. Alternative schema, based on these or other characteristics, may reveal other
barriers to mobility and suggest other bases of closure. Moreover, because the 1981 LFS
includes details about occupation at only two points in time, work histories cannot be followed,
and one cannot tell whether the class mobility observed is the restult of job chaning widely
distributed through the working population, or the effect of a small number of people changing
jobs and class very frequently. The data also say little about the processes which lead to the
formation of interclass barriers to mobility, although there can be little doubt that the factors
leading to closure are very various and can only be studied by detailed investigations of
particular occupational communities.
• Within these limitations, however, the data have shown that there is a fair amount of short-
term class mobility taking place, with between 3 and 4 per cent changing class every year.
This mobility is structured, more so in the case of men than women, and follows the expected

140 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY