Abstract
The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of incorporating women into the study of social mobility on the understanding of class structure and mobility pattern which is based on the “conventional” approach to mobility studies. The comparative analysis with European industrial societies is also discussed here.
In order to investigate the effect of women on mobility pattern in the society, we resort to the two types of comparisons; (1) the comparison of intergenerational moblity through employment between men and women and (2) the comparison of the complete mobility table, created by the dominance approach, with the men-only mobility table. When we focus on the absolute mobility rates such as outflow rates from different class origins, we witness explicit gender differences in mobility pattern which derive from the persistent gender differences in employment status and occupation. However, when we focus on relative mobility rates, relative mobility chances by class origin, we find very little gender difference in mobility rates. The difference between the complete mobility table including men and women and the men-only mobility table is negligible, and this means that the extent of contribution of women in determining the family's class position is not large enough to impose a major revision to the “conventional approach” to mobility studies. These results based on the Japanese society can be replicated in European nations. If we consider relative rates as one of measures of openness and fluidity in a society, the conclusions drawn from the “conventional” approach to mobility studies which excludes women do not necessarily seem to mislead the degree of openness in a society.
