Moving in society is called changing social status. Vertical and horizontal social mobility

Migration mobility of the population has a positive and negative impact on society: on the economy, politics, and spiritual life. The fate of Russia was greatly influenced by Mongol invasion. In particular, we borrowed from the Horde autocratic political structure. As a result of the war of 1812-1814, the Russian nobility became infected with the ideas of the French Revolution, which resulted in a military mutiny in December 1825. Soviet soldiers who liberated Europe from Nazism found that people live better not under socialism.

The mechanisms of social mobility are different in different countries.

IN Soviet (socialist) society did not have economic classes in the exact sense of the word. Under the conditions of state ownership of the means of production, the main feature of an economic class, the attitude to property, is absent. In Soviet society, the following social classes existed, depending on their location in the power hierarchy:

nomenklatura (ruling);
bureaucracy (executive);
proletariat (workers) - workers, employees, collective farmers, including actual slaves in the Gulag.

In 1989, T. Zaslavskaya and R. Ryvka singled out the following Soviet society:

imperious, differing in character (party, state, economic) authorities;
related to the spheres and branches of the national economy (military, municipal, etc.);
economic managers, differing in the rank of power (heads of associations, enterprises, divisions);
intelligentsia, differing in its profile (engineering, creative, etc.);
declassed.

The mechanism of social mobility in the Soviet (political) society was state-distributive in nature and included the following methods. Firstly, the nomenklatura mechanism: a significant part of the leading workers were appointed by party committees of the appropriate level and submitted to them. So, workers of the district level were appointed and subordinated to the district committee of the Communist Party. Secondly, repressions against "enemies of the people" (enemies of the Soviet society) and entire peoples, as a result of which there was a rapid displacement of people. Stalin was well aware of the role of repression as a mechanism of social mobility for "withdrawal from circulation" of "spent personnel". Thirdly, the "buildings of communism", where the masses of people moved: virgin lands, BAM and others. During the years of Brezhnev's "stagnation", social mobility slowed down as a result of the orientation towards the stabilization of personnel and the easing of repressions (started under Khrushchev). Social mobility remained high in the scientific and educational sphere, where new opportunities arose as a result of the scientific and technological revolution (“scientific and technological revolution”).

Western (capitalist and social democratic) societies have the following socio-professional structure at the industrial stage of development:

the highest class of professional managers (managers);
mid-level technicians;
commercial grade;
petty bourgeoisie;
technicians and workers with managerial functions;
skilled workers;
unskilled workers;
unemployed.

Social mobility in Western societies is characterized by considerable speed and intensity in the economic, professional and political spheres. The main mechanism of social mobility is competition in all spheres of society, focused on results - on efficiency. In the economic sphere, there are rapid and intense movements vertically and horizontally, due to the ruin and unemployment of some and the success and high earnings of others. In the political sphere, the mechanism of social mobility is elections, as a result of which there is a movement of persons and political parties. Territorial mobility is associated with the movement of masses of the population in search of work. Due to the high standard of living in Western countries ah, a lot of people from other countries tend to move there to live and work. As a result, especially in the United States, a country of migrants, whole ethnic regions are emerging.

In post-Soviet Russia the following strata can be distinguished depending on power, wealth, education, nature of work:

ruling group (politicians and financiers);
"new Russians" (new Russian bourgeoisie);
petty bourgeoisie ("shuttle traders", farmers, entrepreneurs);
production workers;
knowledge workers;
peasants, etc.

Thus, we have approached the western.

Post-Soviet Russia has a significant aggregate mobility index, mostly downward and horizontal. This applies to the army, school, property, family, church, etc. Many people have become impoverished, with the result that there is a danger of a social explosion. Large groups people from the CIS countries, where the standard of living is lower than in Russia, move to us to work and live. This creates many inter-ethnic and social problems.

Globalization as a hallmark modern world, is characterized by a very significant migration of the population from undeveloped countries to developed ones. Millions of people are fleeing countries with massive unemployment for unskilled jobs and higher living standards. In many countries of the world, including Russia, construction workers in large numbers- visitors.

“Modern immigration,” writes Christopher Coker, “is a phenomenon that threatens to split Western society rather than unite it, as happened in the 1930s.<...>Both the United States and Europe are already multi-ethnic and multi-racial societies. The beginning of the 21st century will show whether they will accept the diversity of cultures as the basis of their identity.” Concern in this regard is caused by neo-Nazi parties, which were able to attract about 10 percent of the vote in France, Austria and other countries. This remark applies to Russia as well.

The essence of social mobility

Social mobility as a factor in the dynamization of stratification processes

The status-layer hierarchy of different societies and different eras has some common characteristics. Thus, in any society, people of intellectual labor as a whole occupy more privileged positions than people physical labor; highly skilled workers acquire higher status positions than unskilled ones. In every society there are also sections of the poor and the rich. However, the higher the social hierarchy the social class is located, the more barriers exist for those who would like to penetrate it from the outside. In the historical practice of many countries, it was not uncommon for there to be social groups with little permeability, the entire way of life and activity of which, as it were, closed in on itself, being fenced off by social barriers from the lower strata. Nevertheless, processes of social mobility have always developed in society, providing a person with the opportunity to change his status position for the better.

P. Sorokin defines social mobility like any transition of an individual or social object(values), t. everything that is created or modified by human activity, from one social position to another.

It should be added to the above definition that in some cases a person makes this transition without excessive efforts (changes place of residence or work), in others the transition occurs due to natural causes arising from the life cycles of a person (transition from one age group to another). But in the vast majority life situations a person has to make a lot of conscious efforts to change his social status, especially when it comes to the desire to improve it. However, there are a number of human qualities that are determined biologically, which makes it impossible to change the social position (race, gender).

Processes of social mobility are formed from the purposeful activity of people to achieve life goals, and are also supported by both social self-organization (traditional prohibitions and incentives, family relations, amateur forms of life, mores), and system-institutional structures - legal regulators, the educational system, various ways to stimulate labor activity on the part of the state, the church, the professional corporate environment, etc. Taken together, these factors and prerequisites that support the processes of social mobility provide many opportunities for different groups to vary their actions in order to achieve the necessary status position. At the same time, society is objectively interested in ensuring that, on the one hand, there is no sharp confrontation of group interests, specific lines of behavior of people, and on the other hand, there is an active exchange of social energy and spiritual resources, especially in situations where the need for such activation is repeatedly increases.

In any society, there is a certain balance in the processes of social mobility, balancing the contradictory tendencies within them. So, the representatives of the lower groups are directed different forms social assistance capable of alleviating their deprivation. In turn, representatives of prestigious strata (authoritative, professional, tender, etc.) strive to distinguish themselves as social entities and retain signs of their high status. Different ways many social obstacles are being erected to prevent the penetration of people from lower strata into the privileged ranks. One should also take into account the effect of objective restrictions characteristic of the holistic functioning of an economic or social organism: a society based on certain stage development needs a certain proportion of people with specific professions, large owners, top government officials, etc. It is impossible to arbitrarily exceed a certain amount of the indicated occupations and status positions, no matter how people try to improve the mechanisms of social mobility.

But at the same time, in the flow of social interactions there are always opposite tendencies, leading to a loosening of the existing situation or to its renewal. The specific mechanism of this loosening can be understood by the example of the problematization of the living conditions of certain groups, by the desire of people to achieve more in life than their parents. The transformation of mass value orientations, as well as the life problems that arise before many people in the process of social activity, make them look for opportunities to change their social position. Therefore, many of them seek to overcome obstacles and make the transition to a more prestigious group.

Historical practice shows that there were no societies with absolutely impenetrable partitions between social classes and strata, as well as with total absence such barriers. Different societies differ only in the degree, forms, mechanisms of permeability of social barriers. One of the most stable stratification structures in the form of caste division can be found in India. However, even in antiquity, and even more so at the present time, channels and mechanisms (sometimes barely noticeable) are preserved that make the transition from one layer to another possible.

The position of some researchers, which boils down to the fact that social progress The democratization of society inevitably leads in our time to the removal of obstacles to the transition of people to more privileged groups. Sociologists have repeatedly proved on massive material that democratic changes in a particular society do not mean an absolute decrease, but only the replacement of one type of social obstacles by others. Today, Western researchers are coming to this conclusion using the example of open societies. Thus, the American researcher L. Duberman states that in the last 100 years, "in terms of greater openness or closeness, the American class structure has remained relatively unchanged." Similar conclusions were obtained by the researcher B. Schaefer from Germany, the French sociologist D. Marceau, the British J. Goldthor and F. Beaven.

The statements of researchers about social stability and even a certain immobility of social proportions in the developed countries of the West should be understood in the sense that the hierarchical structure that has been developing in them for centuries cannot be transformed quickly and, most importantly, in a one-sided direction. Under the influence social factors both unfavorable (wars, revolutions) and favorable (modernization, economic recovery), this structure fluctuates first in one direction, then in the other. Thus, it is modified, but on the whole retaining the same range of hierarchy, the extent of social distances between layers. It can be said that on different stages development of a particular society, in different historical situations, the processes of social mobility can differ markedly from each other, but their variability is carried out around certain limits and principles, which are determined, on the one hand, by historical tradition, and on the other hand, by social needs in a certain period of time. If we compare the processes of social mobility in different countries, and especially in societies of different types of development and unequal civilizational affiliation, then we can see their noticeable difference from each other.

Varieties of social mobility

Today, as before, initial stage social mobility is similar for all people: at birth, a child receives the social status of his parents, the so-called ascriptive, or prescribed status. Parents, relatives and people close to the family pass on to the child those norms of behavior, ideas about what is due and prestigious that prevail in their environment. However, during the active period of life, a person is often not satisfied with the position in his layer, achieving more. In this case, researchers say that a person changes his previous status and acquires a new one. achieved status. Thus, he became involved in the processes upward mobility.

Let us single out cases when representatives of social groups have a prescribed status that cannot be changed at will alone (separation of people according to gender, race, age). For representatives of such groups, social mobility is often hampered due to social discrimination fixed in a given society. In this situation, group members may seek change public stereotypes in relation to themselves and through initiative actions, to demand the expansion of channels of their social mobility.

However, in modern society many people carry out upward professional mobility through the choice of a particular profession, the achievement of a high level of qualification and vocational education, change of profession and leaving for a highly paid field of work or for more prestigious job, through moving to a new place of work in another city or in another country. Often people change their status outside the professional sphere - in this case, upward mobility can be realized through changing their marital status, support from family and friends.

Sociologists also distinguish downward social mobility. It's about about the loss of many advantages of the previous status and about the transition of a person to a social group of a lower level. People face this type of mobility, as a rule, due to unfavorable or unavoidable circumstances, for example, in an economic crisis, when retirement age, as well as due to illness, disability. The situation of downward mobility is regarded by society as undesirable for a person, therefore, within the framework of the family and state institutions many methods are being developed to smooth out its severity, to reduce the scale - family support, the system of social insurance and pensions, social charity and guardianship.

In addition to the identified two types of social mobility, which are vertical(directed up or down), a number of other varieties of it are considered in science. Let's point to horizontal mobility associated with a person's change of place of work, place of residence, position, but without changing the status rank. In this case, an important form of social mobility is also carried out, which allows, for example, to solve some personal problems, expands the social opportunities of people with an eye to the future, and enriches their professional experience.

The types of social mobility discussed above can exist both in the form of chaotic individual movements, and in the form of directed collective-group transformations. In other words, under some conditions, individual mobility takes place, often acquiring a random or chaotic character, in others it is realized as similar collective movements. During the period of radical transformations, entire strata and social groups change their social status, demonstrating the so-called structural mobility which is prepared and takes place under the influence of many factors, spontaneously, through the transformation of the whole society. Thus, European revolutions were accompanied by the departure of the old aristocracy from the social scene, which opened up wide opportunities for the bourgeoisie, as well as the intellectual elite, to show their activity. In the conditions of evolutionary development in the 1960-1980s. in the USSR, a number of professional strata experienced a gradual status transformation. Some of them lost their positions (teachers, engineers, scientists), while others gained them (employees in the banking and service sectors, lawyers), which was clearly manifested in the dynamics of the professional orientations of young people in these decades. The decrease in status positions in some groups and the increase in others were indicators of structural mobility, testified to hidden shifts in the social structure, which sooner or later had to manifest itself in the transformation of the entire social organism.

Closely related to individual and collective-group movements are two more varieties of social mobility: mobility based on voluntary movements of people within groups and between groups, as well as mobility is objectively inevitable, if necessary forced caused by structural shifts in various areas of social practice - in the economy, political practice, demography.

Finally, one should stop at intragenerational(intragenerational) and intergenerational(intergenerational) mobility, which indicate a change in social status both within certain age cohorts and from parents to children. Changes of this kind are set by traditions, the historical situation that determines one or another serious shift in a given society, and the country's geopolitical position. So, other things being equal, intergenerational mobility in modern English society is slower than in the United States, which is explained by the unequal role of traditions in preserving the younger generation's belonging to their class, stratum. At the same time, the peculiarity of the processes of social mobility in the United States has always been determined by the large-scale flow of immigrants from the Old World and other regions of the world. In Japan, intergenerational status positions have been transforming more rapidly over the past 50 years than in the second half of the 19th century, which is associated with the country's active involvement in the modern world dynamics.

Social mobility in unequal conditions of social development

Mobility in evolutionary conditions of development

Above, attention was paid to the balance, the correspondence of various processes of social mobility to each other in the conditions of evolutionary development. In such a situation remains low scale of social mobility - it is defined through the percentage of people who have changed the status inherited from their parents. At this time, adult children for the most part do not go beyond the social position of their parents. But even if they leave the status that belongs to their parents, some workers remain all their lives in the social position from which they began their independent labor activity, while others move one or two steps higher. Under these conditions, it is rare for someone to be able to immediately move to several levels of career and well-being in a short period.

Currently, the processes of social mobility of modern Western society are experiencing a special state. The very social structure of a developed society is based on the strength of the middle class, while remaining relatively stable overall. However, the middle class itself, integrating 60-75% of the population, has probably reached the limits of its volume. Social vertical mobility in the countries of Western Europe over the past 30 years has been characterized by the following features. There was an equalization of the chances of vertical mobility for representatives of different groups. The children of workers, at the expense of social assistance from the state, could even overtake the children of employees in some ways. Women's mobility increased. Intellectual activity has become a common phenomenon, which has affected the decline in the status of the intellectuals themselves. The revolution in education allowed a significant number of citizens to receive training in secondary vocational and higher education, but quality education everywhere became more rare and inaccessible. As a result, in the last decade of the XX century. over 50% of people aged 30-60 had a higher education than their parents. But at the same time, their social status was lower or the same as that of their parents. The described situation in the developed countries of the West indicates a kind of stoppage of the social lift, the destruction of important steps in the mechanism of vertical mobility.

A considerable danger to the functioning of the mechanisms of social mobility and stratification in the West is also posed by the migration of guest workers from different countries of the world, whose share in the population individual countries is 7-13%. At the beginning of this migration (in the 70-80s of the XX century), it was assumed that foreign labor would just smooth out the disproportions social structure Western European countries, replenishing the layers of low-skilled manual workers and gradually integrating into European culture. However, this did not happen. Even in the second, third generations, people from Asia, the Middle East, North Africa they do not want (and in many ways cannot) turn into average citizens of Western countries due to their racial and anthropological qualities, cultural and religious orientations. In many large cities of the West there are now quarters inhabited by representatives of non-European ethnic groups, among which the scale of unemployment is much higher, people without certain occupations, with a low level of education. In such quarters, rules of conduct and moral requirements reign, in many respects different from the culture of the dominant majority. Marginalized groups often appear here, consisting of aggressive young people who can throw out their unmotivated cruelty on residents of neighborhoods with indigenous populations. All this, of course, aggravates the costs of the mechanisms of social mobility and stratification in the developed Western countries.

Mobility in the context of industrialization

In the last 100-200 years, many societies have entered a period of more intensive development associated with the renewal of the economy and social practices. In this case, the processes of social mobility also began to change, accelerating, in turn, modernization changes. At this time, there was an intensive destruction of the former characteristics of social mobility, replacing them with new qualities. Let us first consider the transformation of the processes of social mobility, in which the tendencies of their constructive renewal come to the fore.

Renewal functions are especially pronounced at certain periods industrialization through which all the countries of the West passed in modern times. In the last hundred plus years, many non-European countries experienced the stage of industrialization, modernizing their economy, social relations, and traditional culture. In Russia, the processes of industrialization, which began in the last third of the 19th century, developed most intensively from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s. and ended in general by the 1970s. Let us characterize the most important trends in social mobility inherent in processes of this kind.

In the course of industrialization, there is mainly a forced mass migration of people from countryside to the cities. Both in cities and in villages, commodity-industrial production is emerging, which then rapidly expands its scale, stimulating the introduction of new labor technologies. All this, in turn, leads to the emergence of new professions and specialties, differentiates the qualifications of workers, which is accompanied by an increase in the educational level of the population, an increase in people's awareness, and the expansion of their worldview horizon. The ways in which children and young people are socialized are changing. Major transformations are taking place in family relationships, life, ways of rest and improvement. In a word, the whole way of life of the population is changing radically. Generations of children, and even more so of grandchildren, live in completely different conditions than their fathers and grandfathers. Thus, the scale of mobility in these conditions noticeably increases - for 50-100 years there is a constant increase in the proportion of the population that does not repeat the status of its parents, reaching at peak points of the intensity of social movements their volume equal to 60-75%.

Of course, during these years there may be recessions in production, political crises, social clashes. But if public policy industrialization is thought out and implemented successfully, the development of society remains stable, and at the same time, there are diverse ways for people to climb the social ladder. Millions of people are involved in these processes, which, as a rule, cover the active period of life (it is equal to 25-30 years) of several generations. These shifts play a generally constructive role in updating community development, although serious humanitarian costs inevitably make themselves felt at certain stages of industrialization. Among the latter, we will point out such phenomena as the massive weakening of the previous ties that consolidated the population, including those that supported economic, family and domestic relations, the imbalance of collective interactions between representatives of new and former professional strata, as well as an increase in the scale of marginality .

Special mention should be made of the increase in the period of industrialization of the phenomenon social marginality. Marginality can be understood in a narrow and broad sense. In a narrow sense, it is associated with an incomplete, partial, intermediate character social roles any group or individual. But in this case, the interpretation of marginality as a broad social phenomenon, into which thousands, and sometimes millions of people are drawn, is emphasized. (See Chapter 9.) Processes of industrial transformation lead to a dramatic restructuring of society that integrates—partly voluntarily, partly involuntarily—great masses of people into social mobility. For some new status turns out to be downward, while others acquire it in the process of moving up the status ladder.

But everywhere this movement generates structural marginality, which is associated with the mass loss of entire layers of their former status, the breaking of habitual ties, a change in the social environment, which in one way or another turns people into outcasts- persons deprived in the new position of stable value orientations, social roots, understanding of what is happening, even if they have improved their status. If a weighted social politics and in the processes of stratification a certain balance continues to be maintained between traditional and new strata, then the scale of marginalization is not capable of seriously destabilizing society. In this case, the new stratification order is fixed faster than the old one falls apart.

It should be emphasized that the social mobility of the period of industrialization, having common features development in different countries, yet does not acquire a universal character. In each society, these processes are determined by the specific situation that develops in a particular period of development, are closely intertwined with elements of tradition. All this makes it possible to neutralize the rapid transition of huge masses of people from one social stratum to another and the acuteness of integration into modern economic dynamics.

Let us refer to the experience of Japan. In large Japanese firms in relation to permanent staff, a system of lifetime employment and the principle of seniority of promotion are applied. Lifetime employment means that the employee is employed by the firm for the entire working period of his life. In turn, the management of the company guarantees its employment during the crisis, when it dismisses that part of the staff that is not covered by this system. Thus, the employee has confidence in the future and a fairly stable financial position, including assistance from the company to solve his family problems (for example, to purchase housing, educate children). The principle of seniority of promotion is due to the fact that the company has strict principles for raising the status of an employee depending on the length of service (i.e., age), in which it is often impossible even to move from one category of workers to another. There are also career growth limits within the company, its own promotion scale wages, severance pay, length of paid leave, etc. These mobility mechanisms operate only in large Japanese firms. In other countries, there may be other systems for selecting and retaining good workers, aimed at mitigating social costs in the face of abrupt social transformations.

Mobility in crisis conditions of social development

Let us now consider the state of social mobility processes under conditions social destruction, social crises. The systematic destruction of the mechanisms of layer formation and social mobility in different countries was of great interest to P. Sorokin, who experienced a similar situation during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. Under these conditions, mass downward mobility of many layers takes place and a flat—almost without upper layers—stratification profile is formed. Sorokin believed that such a massive “disorder” of the mechanisms of stratification and mobility occurs spontaneously on the scale of society, as a response of the social system to the hypertrophied nature of these processes at the previous stage.

Similar situations of general destruction also occur during periods of economic depression, as a result of failure and disruption of modernization reforms, as well as in conditions of war, revolution, prolonged political, national clashes, which indicate the loss of society's mobilization and adaptive abilities to adequately respond to internal and external danger. These situations give rise to social instability, which, as a rule, is accompanied by an unfavorable transformation of the employment structure, an increase in the proportion of the unemployed, mass impoverishment of the main part of the population, and an increase in diseases and mortality. Often, internal migration of people increases, refugees and internally displaced persons appear. All this, in turn, destroys the former value-semantic orientations of people and is accompanied by the spread of social anomie.

Under such conditions, social mobility and stratification processes are extremely unstable and largely depend on a set of transient factors. So, a high position is able to achieve random people or even representatives of criminal structures. The scale of structural marginalization in this situation can be many times greater than those that appear in the conditions of industrialization. The stabilization of new stratification mechanisms and, in particular, the mechanisms of social mobility, is possible not earlier than a certain social stability is achieved and the new foundations on which the mechanisms of social reproduction will develop are clarified.

Society does not remain unshakable. In society, there is a slow or rapid increase in the number of one and a decrease in the number of another social stratum, as well as an increase or decrease in their status. Relative stability social strata does not exclude vertical migration of individuals. According to P. Sorokin, social mobility is understood as the transition of an individual, a social community, a value from one social status to another."

social mobility is the transition of a person from one social group to another.

Horizontal mobility is distinguished when a person moves to a group located at the same hierarchical level as the previous one, and vertical when a person moves to a higher (upward mobility) or lower (downward mobility) rung in the social hierarchy.

Examples of Horizontal Mobility: moving from one city to another, changing religion, moving from one family to another after the breakdown of marriage, changing citizenship, moving from one political party to another, changing jobs when transferring to an approximately equivalent position.

Examples of vertical mobility: change from a low-paid job to a highly paid one, the transformation of an unskilled worker into a skilled one, the election of a politician as the president of the country (these examples demonstrate upward vertical mobility), the demotion of an officer to a private, the ruin of an entrepreneur, the transfer of a shop manager to the position of foreman (downward vertical mobility).

Societies where social mobility is high are called open, and societies with low social mobility closed. In the most closed societies (say, in a caste system), upward upward mobility is practically impossible. In less closed (for example, in a class society) there are opportunities for moving the most ambitious or successful people to higher levels of the social ladder.

Traditionally, the institutions that contributed to the promotion of people from the "low" classes were the army and the church, where any private or priest, with the appropriate abilities, could reach the highest social position - become a general or church hierarch. Another way to rise higher in the social hierarchy was profitable marriage and marriage.

In an open society, the main mechanism for raising social status is the institution of education. Even a member of the lowest social strata can expect to achieve a high position, but on condition that he receives a good education in prestigious university, while demonstrating high academic performance, purposefulness and high intellectual abilities.

Individual and group social mobility

At individual social mobility, it is possible to change the social status and role of an individual within social stratification. For example, in post-Soviet Russia, a former ordinary engineer becomes an "oligarch", and the president turns into a wealthy pensioner. At group social mobility changes the social status of some social community. For example, in post-Soviet Russia, a significant part of teachers, engineers, scientists became "shuttles". Social mobility also implies the possibility of changing the social status of values. For example, during the transition to post-Soviet relations, the values of liberalism (freedom, enterprise, democracy, etc.) have risen in our country, while the values of socialism (equality, diligence, centralism, etc.) have fallen.

Horizontal and vertical social mobility

Social mobility can be vertical and horizontal. At horizontal mobility is the social movement of individuals and occurs in other, but equal in status social communities. These can be considered as moving from state structures to private ones, moving from one enterprise to another, etc. Varieties of horizontal mobility are: territorial (migration, tourism, relocation from village to city), professional (change of profession), religious (change of religion) , political (transition from one political party to another).

At vertical mobility is happening ascending And descending movement of people. An example of such mobility is the demotion of workers from the "hegemon" in the USSR to the simple class in today's Russia and, conversely, the rise of speculators to the middle and upper class. Vertical social movements are associated, firstly, with profound changes in the socio-economic structure of society, the emergence of new classes, social groups striving to win a higher social status, and secondly, with a change in ideological guidelines, value systems and norms. , political priorities. In this case, there is an upward movement of those political forces that were able to catch changes in the mindsets, orientations and ideals of the population.

To quantify social mobility, indicators of its speed are used. Under speed social mobility refers to the vertical social distance and the number of strata (economic, professional, political, etc.) that individuals go through in their movement up or down over a certain period of time. For example, a young specialist after graduation can take the positions of a senior engineer or head of a department for several years, etc.

Intensity social mobility is characterized by the number of individuals who change social positions in a vertical or horizontal position for a certain period of time. The number of such individuals gives absolute intensity of social mobility. For example, during the years of reforms in post-Soviet Russia (1992-1998), up to one third of the "Soviet intelligentsia", who constituted the middle class Soviet Russia, became “shuttles.

Aggregate index social mobility includes its speed and intensity. In this way one can compare one society with another in order to find out (1) in which of them or (2) in what period social mobility is higher or lower in all indicators. Such an index can be calculated separately for economic, professional, political and other social mobility. Social mobility important characteristic dynamic development of society. Those societies where the total index of social mobility is higher develop much more dynamically, especially if this index belongs to the ruling strata.

Social (group) mobility is associated with the emergence of new social groups and affects the ratio of the main ones, whose no longer correspond to the existing hierarchy. By the middle of the 20th century, for example, managers (managers) of large enterprises became such a group. On the basis of this fact in Western sociology, the concept of the "revolution of managers" (J. Bernheim) has developed. According to her, the administrative stratum begins to play a decisive role not only in the economy, but also in social life, supplementing and displacing the class of owners of the means of production (capitalists).

Social movements along the vertical are intensively going on during the restructuring of the economy. The emergence of new prestigious, highly paid professional groups contributes to mass movement up the ladder of social status. The fall of the social status of the profession, the disappearance of some of them provoke not only a downward movement, but also the emergence of marginal strata, losing their usual position in society, losing the achieved level of consumption. There is an erosion of values and norms that previously united them and determined their stable place in the social hierarchy.

Outcasts - these are social groups that have lost their former social status, deprived of the opportunity to engage in their usual activities, and found themselves unable to adapt to the new sociocultural (value and normative) environment. Their former values and norms did not succumb to the displacement of new norms and values. The efforts of marginals to adapt to new conditions give rise to psychological stress. The behavior of such people is characterized by extremes: they are either passive or aggressive, and also easily violate moral standards, capable of unpredictable actions. A typical leader of marginals in post-Soviet Russia is V. Zhirinovsky.

During periods of acute social cataclysms, a radical change in the social structure, an almost complete renewal of the highest echelons of society can occur. Thus, the events of 1917 in our country led to the overthrow of the old ruling classes (nobility and bourgeoisie) and the rapid rise of a new ruling stratum (communist party bureaucracy) with nominally socialist values and norms. Such a cardinal replacement of the upper stratum of society always takes place in an atmosphere of extreme confrontation and tough struggle.

SOCIAL MOBILITY - the ability of an individual, a social group to change their place in the social structure of society. In essence, these are all movements of the individual, family, social group in the system of social ties. People are in constant motion, and society is in development; therefore, one of the important mechanisms of social stratification is social mobility. For the first time M.'s theory of page. was developed and introduced into scientific circulation by the famous Russian sociologist P. A. Sorokin.

There are two main types of M. with. - intergenerational and intragenerational, as well as two main types - vertical and horizontal. They fall into subspecies and subtypes that are closely related to each other. Intergenerational mobility implies that children achieve a higher social position or fall to a lower rung than their parents. For example, the son of a worker becomes an engineer. Intragenerational mobility takes place where the same individual changes social positions throughout his life. Otherwise, it is called a social career. For example, a turner becomes an engineer, then a shop manager, a factory director, and so on. Vertical mobility implies moving from one stratum (estate, class, caste) to another. At birth, a person receives the social status of his parents. However, during the active period of his activity, a person may not be satisfied with his position in this social stratum and achieve more. If its status is changed to a higher one, then upward mobility takes place. However, as a result of life's cataclysms (loss of work, illness, etc.), he can move to a lower status group. In this case, downward mobility is triggered. These are all varieties of vertical mobility.

Horizontal mobility is the transition of an individual or social group from one social position to another, located on the same social level. An example would be the transition from one profession to another, in which there is no significant change in social status. Geographical mobility is a variation of horizontal mobility. It implies a simple movement from one place to another while maintaining the same status. However, if a change of status is added to a change of place, then geographic mobility turns into population migration. Group mobility occurs where and when the social significance of an entire class, estate, caste, rank, or category rises or falls. According to P.A. Sorokin, the following factors served as the causes of group mobility: social revolutions; foreign interventions, invasions; interstate and civil wars; military coups and change political regimes; replacing the old constitution with a new one; peasant uprisings; internecine struggle of aristocratic families; creation of an empire. Individual mobility occurs when moving down, up or horizontally occurs in an individual independently of others.

Mobility can also be voluntary and forced, structural and organized. Mobility distinguished by spheres of public life can be economic, political, professional, religious, etc. Changes in the class structure of society are the result of mobility: interclass and intraclass (declassing, marginalization, lumpenization). Mobility channels, or institutions (according to P. Sorokin): army, school, church, marriage, property. Sometimes they are called elevators. Mobility differs between open and closed societies. Closed societies - caste, slaveholding. Open - industrial (bourgeois). Semi-closed - feudal. In a closed society, mobility is sharply limited, in an open society - high degree mobility.

Social mobility is associated with the presence in society of objective and subjective conditions for the life of an individual or a social group, presenting them with the opportunity to change their social position or status, that is, in other words, it is the movement of individuals or groups in social space.

Before proceeding to consider the processes of social mobility, we list some of the factors leading to the stratification of society. Different aspects and elements of layer formation have different time periods of action, so the time factor plays a certain role here. Interaction with other cultures also acts as a stimulus for stratification changes. Of no less importance are the processes of urbanization, as well as the factors of social disintegration.
The mechanisms of stratification in society manifest themselves at two levels: non-institutional and institutional. At the non-institutional level, these changes are expressed in everyday life, in social psychology, and behavioral acts. At the institutional level, such changes are fixed in various social institutions. On the one hand, social groups seek to distinguish themselves as social entities, to maintain their social status. But on the other hand, tendencies are being revealed that lead to a loosening of the existing situation. It is then that the mechanism of social mobility manifests itself.

Exist different types social mobility (intergenerational, intragenerational, professional, etc.), which in general can be reduced to two manifestations (types) - vertical and horizontal mobility.

Vertical mobility is associated with the movement of an individual or group in the system of social hierarchy, including a change in social status. Vertical mobility can be upward or downward. If the status of a person or social group is changed to a higher, more prestigious one, then upward mobility can be stated. Accordingly, the transition to a lower status means downward mobility.

Horizontal mobility is expressed in the movement of an individual or group in a social structure without changing social status.

Horizontal movements are made up of natural and territorial types of mobility (for example, moving from city to city).
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Social mobility can be individual and group. Group mobility takes place where the social significance of a class, social group, or stratum rises or falls. Among the causes of group mobility are social revolutions, invasions, wars, change of political regimes, replacement of the old constitution with a new one, etc., that is, the system of stratification itself is changing. Sociologists refer to the factors of individual mobility the social status of the family, the level of education received, nationality, abilities, external data, place of residence, advantageous marriage.

In addition, mobility can be organized (managed, for example, by the state, and with the consent of people and without their consent (repatriation of small peoples, dispossession, etc.). At the same time, structural mobility is distinguished, which differs from organized mobility, since it is caused by a change in structure economic activity society.

Social mobility is measured using indicators such as mobility distance (shows how many steps up or down the social ladder has moved), mobility volume (number of individuals who were included in vertical mobility).

Changes in mobility by strata take into account such indicators as the coefficient of mobility of exit from the social stratum, the coefficient of mobility of entry into the social stratum.

Horizontal and vertical mobility is influenced by demographic factors: gender, age, birth rate, death rate, population density.

One of the complete descriptions of vertical mobility channels was proposed by P. Sorokin (“vertical circulation channels”). Among them are various social institutions that facilitate the movement of an individual from one layer to another: the army, church, school, property, family and marriage.

However, in society, the transition of individuals from one social group to another can not always occur without hindrance. M. Weber described such a phenomenon as a social clause - the closure of a group in itself. This phenomenon characterizes the stabilization of social life, the transition from an early to a mature stage of development, an increase in the role of attributed status and a decrease in the role of achieved.

The system of redistribution of power, wealth, etc. can be based on a fixed rule-making basis. In this case, there is a stratification at the institutional level. “At the institutional level of layer formation, the social structure is fixed, i.e., the correlation of a person with one or another category of property, official and other rights and, depending on this, with specific benefits and duties” . Here, those social mechanisms begin to operate that introduce the processes of layer formation into a codified channel.

Legislative legal bodies codify the norms of interaction between different social groups, balance the interests of various strata on the basis of common social interests.

Mobility Vertical – sociological dictionary

A set of interactions that contribute to the transition of an individual or a social object from one social stratum to another.

Mobility Within a Generation – sociological dictionary

(intragenerational mobility) - see Social mobility.

Mobility Horizontal – sociological dictionary

The transition of an individual or social object from one social position to another, lying on the same level.

Mobility J. – Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova

1. Distraction. noun by value adj.: mobile.

Mobility Between Generations – sociological dictionary

(intergenerational mobility) - see Social mobility.

Mobility Intergenerational – sociological dictionary

English mobility, intergenerational; German Mobilitat, intergenerative. 1. Change in social position or status from one generation to another (from father to son, etc.); 2. Total differences in social. position and status between different generations of a given society. See MOBILITY SOCIAL VERTICAL.

Mobility Imaginary – sociological dictionary

English mobility, imaginary; German Mobilitat, scheinbare. Changes in social position, status, which do not actually entail changes in prestige, income, etc. (for example, a new name for the profession).

Mobility Professional – sociological dictionary

English mobility, professional; German Berufsmobilitat. The change of an individual from one profession to another.