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Investigates temporal changes in Hungarian mobility patterns. Large-scale data sets of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, collected between 1973 and 2000 are used for this purpose. In addition to descriptive statistics, log-linear and log-multiplicative models are fitted to the data in order to investigate trends of temporal changes. Descriptive results indicate that the restructuring of the class distribution slowed down in the 1980s in comparison to the 1970s but it increased again in the 1990s. Observed mobility rates turned out to be relatively high but data does not indicate an increase in the openness of the Hungarian society. For relative mobility rates, the hypothesis of constant social fluidity cannot be rejected for Hungary. Though an increase in social fluidity did occur between 1973 and 1983, it levelled off between 1983 and 1992, and it reversed between 1992 and 2000.

This chapter conveys a dynamic account of educational inequality in China during the last decade. It finds that younger students all over China are benefiting from the recent expansion of education. One of the most notable achievements is the virtual elimination of gender bias against girls in educational attainment. However, regional inequality of educational attainment is found to be persistent and this inequality becomes more pronounced as students progress to higher grades. Inter-cohort analysis reveals that the inter-provincial inequality in upper grades is increasing for younger cohort of students, meaning that educational inequality in China is rising. The causes of such rising inequality are quite complex and cannot simply be explained by the urban-bias hypothesis that is often suggested as the main source of income inequality.

This chapter studies long-term trends in intergenerational class mobility in Spain across the twentieth century drawing from a large pooled dataset (n = 81,475). From the 1960s, Spain underwent a late but intense economic, cultural, and political modernization process. During this period of far-reaching institutional change, men and women experienced a significant increase in upward mobility rates and social fluidity: steady and substantial for women, more modest for men. We disentangle different pathways driving this change in social fluidity using counterfactual simulations. The main drivers of the observed equalization of opportunities were the educational expansion and the direct effect of social origins. We argue that women were particularly benefited from dramatic structural changes in labor force participation, occupational upgrading, and educational expansion in which more room at the top allowed disadvantaged social classes to depart from their origins.

Until fairly recently little was known about trends in intergenerational social mobility in Switzerland and the mediating role of education in this process. With lasting high standards of living, big shares of vocational education and training (VET), and wide development of tertiary sector, Switzerland constitutes an interesting case to test modernization theory. Yet this analysis, drawn from a tailor-made dataset constructed from nineteen surveys representative of the Swiss population and collected between 1975 and 2013, leads us to reject expectations from this theory. While educational reforms have contributed to increase access to postcompulsory education, the influence of social background on educational attainment and on occupational destiny has not substantially declined throughout the twentieth century in Switzerland. In light of all this, and despite its economic prosperity and its high standards of living, Switzerland remains far from being a social mobility El Dorado.

This chapter reviews key results and conclusions from the other chapters in this book, focusing in particular on the consequences of educational expansion for young people and the effectiveness of secondary programs in integrating young people into the labor market. It also summarizes results from cohort analyses in Russia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic to uncover the impact of different transformation processes in these countries on the transition from school to work. The first section looks at the main differences in outcomes for individuals with different levels of education. The next two sections present results regarding the social selectivity of educational attainment and the process of labor market entry. The fourth section discusses the results. The last section explores future research on school-to-work transitions in transformation countries and beyond.

Chapter 4 examines how the political economy of national memory affects the legends propagated and aspirations pursued by the Tarim Oilfield Company, and the way that people within the institution deploy these legends in the pursuit of their own aspirations. Daqing oilfield, in Northeast China, is a significant element of Tarim’s institutional genealogy. Daqing oilfield became a defining icon of Chinese self-strengthening nationalism during the Cultural Revolution. The Tarim Oilfield Company has now assumed the “legend of potential” once attributed to Daqing, but not all of Tarim’s elite permanent employees have access to this prospectively-oriented legend. Cohort analysis shows that even a small generational difference can result in vastly different life chances. Socio-structural positions formed on the battlefields, wheatfields, and oilfields of northern China since the middle of last century echo in the classrooms and boardrooms of the early 21st century. But structures are not straitjackets: the oil workers’ biographies also highlight their own agency, and the role of chance.

The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or bingtuan, and the Tarim Oilfield Company are the “era-defining institutions” of state in Korla and in Xinjiang for the period 1949-2012. By defining eras, these institutions also define people. Chapter 2 begins with the life-journey of an oil company cadre from a peri-urban bingtuan regiment to his present elite condition. With the advantage of hindsight and a confidence conferred by status, he reflects on the rise and decline of institutions and populations. His story makes one of the many human connections between the bingtuan and the oil company. This chapter begins an extended cohort analysis of people who grew up on the bingtuan, and is the first of 3 chapters to focus on the Tarim Oilfield Company. There is not a single person living in Korla whose life has not been touched by at least one of these two institutions. But even as they structure lives and transform their environment, these institutions are themselves quintessentially products of the frontier.