Individuals are recognized in society through the statuses they occupy and the roles they enact. The society as well as individuals is dynamic. Men are normally engaged in endless endeavor to enhance their statuses in society, move from lower position to higher position, secure superior job from an inferior one. For various reasons people of the higher status and position may be forced to come down to a lower status and position. Thus people in society continue to move up and down the status scale. This movement is called social mobility.
The study of social mobility is an important aspect of social stratification. Infact it is an inseparable aspect of social stratification system because the nature, form, range and degree of social mobility depends on the very nature of stratification system. Stratification system refers to the process of placing individuals in different layers or strata.
According to Wallace and Wallace "social mobility is the movement of a person or persons from one social status to another".
W. P. Scott has defined sociology as the movement of an individual or group from one social class or social stratum to another.
Types of Social Mobility
Intra Generational Mobility:
Mobility taking place in personal terms within the lifespan of the same person is called intra generational mobility. It refers to the advancement in one's social level during the course of one's lifetime. It may also be understood as a change in social status which occurs within a person's adult career. For example a person working as a supervisor in a factory becoming its assistant manager after getting promotion.
Inter Generational Mobility:
Time factor is an important element in social mobility. On the basis of the time factor involved in social mobility there is another type of inter-generational mobility. It is a change in status from that which a child began within the parents, household to that of the child upon reaching adulthood. It refers to a change in the status of family members from one generation to the next. For example a farmer's son becoming an officer. It is important because the amount of this mobility in a society tells us to what extent inequalities are passed on from one generation to the next. If there is very little inter-generational mobility .inequality is clearly deeply built into the society for people' life chances are being determined at the moment of birth. When there is a mobility people are clearly able to achieve new statuses through their own efforts, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
Absolute Mobility:
Absolute mobility measures whether (and by how much) living standards in a society have increased often measured by what percentage of people have higher incomes than their parents. The more absolute mobility there is, the better off the population is than their parents, and their children will consequently be better off than them. In other words, if one person moves up in relative terms, another by definition must have moved down. In contrast, absolute mobility is not zero-sum.
Relative Mobility:
Relative mobility refers to how likely children are to move from their parents’ place in the income distribution. Relative mobility refers to the fluidity of a society. If your family is poor, you have a decent chance of moving up the relative income ladder. Because relative mobility depends on one’s place in the distribution, it is a zero-sum phenomenon.
Vertical Mobility:
The vertical mobility can take place in two ways - individuals and groups may improve their position in the hierarchy by moving upwards or their position might worsen and they may fall down the hierarchy. When individuals get into seats of political position; acquire money and exert influence over others because of their new status they are said to have achieved individual mobility. Like individuals even groups also attain high social mobility. When a dalit from a village becomes an important official it is a case of upward mobility. On the other hand an aristocrat or a member of an upper class may be dispossessed of his wealth and he is forced to enter a manual occupation. This is an example of downward mobility.
Horizontal Mobility:
When a rural laborer comes to the city and becomes an industrial worker or a manager takes a position in another company there are no significant changes in their position in the hierarchy. Those are the examples of horizontal mobility. Horizontal mobility is a change in position without the change in statue. It indicates a change in position within the range of the same status.
It is a movement from one status to its equivalent. But if an industrial worker becomes a businessman or lawyer he has radically changed his position in the stratification system. This is an example of vertical mobility. Vertical mobility refers to a movement of an individual or people or groups from one status to another. It involves change within the lifetime of an individual to a higher or lower status than the person had to begin with.