Social mobility and demographic behavior: Long term perspectives

Abstract

We introduce a collection of papers that examine interactions between demographic behavior and social mobility via analysis of historical and contemporary longitudinal, individual- and household-level socioeconomic and demographic data. The authors originally presented these papers at "The International Seminar on Social Mobility and Demographic Behavior: A Long Term Perspective" held at the California Center for Population Research at UCLA in December 2009, and organized on behalf of the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Historical Demography. We convened the meeting as a means of promoting the use of historical demographic data to address a topic of contemporary relevance that has been the subject of much attention lately: how the inter-generational transmission of socioeconomic status and socioeconomic differentials in demographic behavior interact to shape patterns of inequality over the long term. The papers here focus specifically on relationships among fertility, marriage, migration, and social mobility. © 2012 Martin Dribe, Jan Van Bavel & Cameron Campbell.