Abstract
The case for defining social mobility in noneconomic terms, as well as economic terms, has been made by both classical and contemporary social scientists (Grusky and Szelényi 2011). Perhaps none of these cases is as fully articulated as Graeme Atherton’s The Success Paradox: Why We Need a Holistic Theory of Social Mobility. The context for this book is Britain’s unprecedented expansion into higher education, and the book is driven by a tension between what has happened in the past and uncertainty about what the future may bring. Atherton attempts to resolve this tension by proposing a post-materialist definition of social mobility, a “holistic theory of mobility.”
Early in The Success Paradox, Atherton states that “if we wish to use social mobility as a means of understanding how individuals and communities are changing in the early 21st century,” then the focus should be on “looking at progress at the level of the individual and at the level of society” (p.5). Current mobility research falls short in this regard because it is constrained by 1) a narrow focus on intergenerational mobility (intragenerational should also be entertained), and 2) a failure to consider “non-economic factors” (p.4). Atherton proposes to break free of these constraints by fleshing out the concept “holistic mobility” with “alternative discourse” (p.126) via the following measures.
First, Atherton proposes formulating a social mobility measurement model in the vein of Amartya Sen’s (1989) concepts of capability and substantive freedom. A challenge of this approach is that it must account for subject-identified realms that will tend to vary by national context, cultural context, and individual preference set. Atherton settles on a Sen-inspired set of 11 indicators developed by the OECD (p.130). These include quality of life indicators (health status, personal security, social connections) and traditional material measures of income and wealth. Identifying noneconomic correlates of social mobility is essential, according to Atherton, because focusing solely on “income/occupation risks exacerbating the corrosive impact of materialism on economic and social life in the 21st century” (p.163).
Second, Atherton makes a case for recalibrating occupational classification to better reflect the complex reality of change in occupational classification over time and the differential ratio of labor supply and demand across local and international labor markets. Even though an “hourglass economy” (p.109) broadly characterizes labor market opportunities within Great Britain, peoples’ lived reality is shaped by a multitude of micro environments presenting near infinite variations from the hourglass. Thus simple generalizations about the most basic determinations of labor market income become problematic, and this is especially the case where social scientists have failed to update occupation classification categories to reflect the lived realities of modern society.
Third, the mission of education, especially higher education, needs to be reformulated to better serve the labor market. Atherton finds that higher education in Great Britain suffers from marketization and massification: there are too many aspiring college graduates for too few high-wage jobs, leading to “a lot of disappointed young people” (p.167). Atherton’s chapter on higher education is compelling because it presents an informed description about the reasons for growth in Britain’s higher education institutions, along with well-reasoned speculation about possible higher education futures. It is here where political beliefs about social mobility have translated into policy, and for different reasons, the political left and the political right support higher education expansion. Atherton suggests that higher education could be usefully restructured toward training in occupation-relevant skill sets, rather than focused on academic subject matter. However, he recognizes that attempts to implement this idea often fail. This section of the book is packed full of fascinating information and is reminiscent of a jazz musician exploring different riffs within an unfinished composition.
Fourth, Atherton suggests creating a national dialogue recognizing that mobility preferences are shaped reflexively by their results. People want various economic and noneconomic outcomes, and preferences are dynamic with respect to time because these are relative to the outcomes others experience. Large cities such as London bring together subcultures where social mobility preferences are shaped by the diversity that characterizes the population. Thus it is incumbent on researchers to study social mobility by drawing insight from “economics, sociology, psychology, political studies, labor market studies and education” (p.169). Atherton asserts that nothing short of full throttle interdisciplinarity can successfully comprehend and map out the grand drama of social mobility in the twenty-first century.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of The Success Paradox is that its consideration of macro-level mobility is attenuated. The discussion of future social change is constrained to variations on capitalism, even though the book makes reference to technology as a source of “fundamental change” (p.19), a not altogether new concept for a social scientist writing from Great Britain. The author might have entertained a broader discussion of macro mobility.
The Success Paradox is pertinent for college and university courses addressing social mobility, in particular comparative courses that include the case of Great Britain. It presents a compelling comparative case to the United States, where policies related to social mobility and higher education are similar but the political and cultural context appears to be quite different.