How occupational status, intergenerational mobility and social network Essay

How occupational status, intergenerational mobility and social network affects individual's status attainment - Essay Example There are different factors which are responsible for status attainment. Some of them are occupational status, intergenerational mobility and social network. Depending on the positioning of the individual with respect to these factors, the status attainment of an individual is determined. This paper studies some of the likely effects of these three factors on the individual's attainment of his status. In studying the concept of social attainment, human capital theory, theories on discrimination and the status attainment models have been used. According to Dr.Pretty Lam (2000) Human capital theory explains the differences in social and economic positions on the basis of factors like, education, work experience and on the job training. Besides the human capital, the concepts of social capital and cultural capital will also be used. "The educational and occupational status attainment process links socio-economic status and mental ability to educational and occupational attainment by means of intervening social psychological variables, including academic performance, the influence of significant others and educational and occupational aspirations." (William H. Sewell, Archibald O. Haller, George W. Ohlendorf 1970) Many analysts even today will substantiate the statement of Blau & Duncan (1967) that "occupational status summarizes much of what matters in the system of inequality". While this fully applies to modern societies, it is even more true for historically observed societies. Occupational position has been the most prominent indicator of social inequality in the past, even more than it is today. Thus by subscribing to the social inequality, the status attainment is more than influenced by an individual's occupational standing and its relevance to his societal status. The occupational position this assumes an important position in the status attainment of an individual. 3.0 Intergenerational Mobility and Status Attainment: For quite some time, the influence of family background on the adult children's economic outcomes has been the focus of research economists. Most of the studies are based on the model developed by Becker and Tomes (1986). In the model, the altruism of the parents is assumed to be of great importance and the parents care about their children's welfare. Parents through heredity like generic traits, cognitive ability and through family environments like family connections pass on endowments to their children. As per Anh Nguyen and Haile Getinet (2003) in addition, parents can influence the economic outcomes of their children by purportedly investing in their children human capital. Because of market imperfections, some parents cannot invest in their children's education at the optimum points, which leads to persistence across generations in economic status, and the poor remains poor. Thus intergenerational mobility of income and earnings has a clear impact on the status attainment of an individual. Apart from the income and earnings, educational attainment and occupational linkage across generatio