Page 266 - Essencials of Sociology

Poverty 239

Women in Studies of Social Mobility

About half of sons pass their fathers on the social class ladder, about one-third stay at
the same level, and about one-sixth fall down the ladder. (Blau and Duncan 1967;
Featherman 1979)
“Only sons!” said feminists in response to these classic studies on social mobility. “Do you
think it is good science to ignore daughters? And why do you assign women the class of
their husbands? Do you think that wives have no social class position of their own?” (Davis
and Robinson 1988; Western et al. 2012). The male sociologists brushed off these objec-
tions, replying that there were too few women in the labor force to make a difference.
These sociologists simply hadn’t caught up with the times. The gradual but steady
increase of women working for pay had caught them unprepared. Although sociologists
now include women in their samples, research on the social class of married women is
still in its infancy, and sons are sometimes still singled out in the research (Lopoo and
DeLeire 2012).
Upwardly mobile women report how important their parents were in their success,
how they were encouraged to achieve when they were just children. For upwardly mobile
African American women, strong mothers are especially significant (Robinson and Nelson
2010). In their study of women from working-class backgrounds who became managers
and professionals, sociologists Elizabeth Higginbotham and Lynn Weber (1992) found
this recurring theme: parents encouraging their girls to postpone marriage and get an Upward social mobility, though
education. To these understandings from the micro approach, we need to add the macro welcome, can place people in a
level. Had there not been a structural change in society, the millions of new positions that world so different from their world
women occupy would not exist. of childhood orientation that they
become strangers to their own family.
The Pain of Social Mobility
If you were to be knocked down the social class ladder, you
know it would be painful. But are you aware that it also hurts to
climb this ladder?
Sociologist Steph Lawler (1999) found that British women
who had moved from the working class to the middle class were
caught between two worlds—their working-class background and
their current middle-class life. Their mothers found the daughters’
middle-class ways “uppity.” They criticized their preferences in
furniture and food, their speech, even the way they reared their
children. As you can expect, this strained the mother–daughter
relationships. Studying working-class parents in Boston, sociolo-
gists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb (1972/1988) found
something similar. The parents had made deep sacrifices—working
two jobs, even postponing medical care—so their children could
go to college. They, of course, expected their children to appreciate their sacrifice. But
again, the result was two worlds of experience. The children’s educated world was so unlike
that of their parents that even talking to one another became difficult. Not surprisingly, the
parents felt betrayed and bitter. Their sacrifices had ripped their children from them.
Torn from their roots, some of those who make the jump from the working to the
middle class never become comfortable with their new social class (Morris and Grimes
2005; Lacy 2007). The Cultural Diversity box on the next page discusses other costs 8.5 Explain the problems in
that come with the climb up the social class ladder. drawing the poverty line, how
poverty is related to geography,
race-ethnicity, education,
Poverty feminization, age, and the culture
of poverty; analyze why people
Many Americans find that the “limitless possibilities” of the American dream are quite are poor; and discuss deferred
elusive. As illustrated in Figure 8.5 on page 231, the working poor and underclass gratification and the Horatio
together form about one-fifth of the U.S. population. This translates into a huge num- Alger myth.
ber, over 60 million people. Who are these people?