(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, DC, July 1, 2013 — For the first time, a study has suggested that the position of grandparents in the British class system has a direct effect on which class their grandchildren belong to. It has long been accepted that parents' social standing has a strong influence on children's education, job prospects, and earning power. However, this study by researchers from the University of Oxford and Durham University shows that even when the influence of parents has been taken into account, the odds of grandchildren going into professional or managerial occupations rather than unskilled manual occupations are at least two and a half times better if their grandparents were themselves in professional-managerial positions rather than unskilled manual occupations.
This latest research, published in the American Sociological Review, finds that the social advantages and disadvantages that are transmitted across generations are a lot more durable and persistent than previously thought. It establishes a statistically significant association between grandparents' and grandchildren's class positions, even after the parents' education, income, and wealth (such as whether they are home-owners) are taken into account.
The researchers analyzed data collected in three nationally representative surveys of over 17,000 Britons born in 1946, 1958, and 1970 respectively. For the studies, cohort members were asked to reveal their occupation as well as the occupation of their father and grandfather. The researchers found that among men with both parents and grandparents in the professional-managerial class, 80% stayed in those advantaged positions. But among men with long-range upwardly mobile parents (i.e., grandparents in unskilled manual occupations and parents in professional-managerial occupations), only 61% managed to stay there. For women, this "grandparents effect" was less strong at 66% and 51% respectively.
Where grandparents were from a high social class and the parents experienced downward social mobility, the "grandparents effect" appeared stronger, pushing the grandchild back up the social ladder. The study says in such cases there was "a higher level of counter mobility" as though grandparents' class background is correcting the "mobility mistake" made by the parents.
Researcher Dr. Tak Wing Chan, from the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford, said: "The 'grandparents effect' in social mobility is found to operate throughout society and is not restricted to the top or bottom of the social class structure in Britain. It may work through a number of channels including the inheritance of wealth and property, and may be aided by durable social institutions such as generation-skipping trusts, residential segregation, and other demographic processes. Further investigation needs to be done to establish the precise mechanisms by which the grandparents effect endures, but our study of 17,000 Britons reveals that grandparents have a substantial effect on where their grandchildren end up in the British class system."
Researcher Dr. Vikki Boliver, from the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University, said: "Numerous studies have demonstrated that social origins strongly predict social destinations, but almost all social mobility studies to date have only examined two generations, parents and children. Although a handful of studies have looked at social mobility patterns of three generations, this is the first time that researchers have found that an individual's fortunes may depend on the attributes and experiences of more distant ancestors such as grandparents."
The researchers say cross-national comparative research is under way to explore whether the grandparents effect in social mobility is also found in other countries.
###
Notes for Editors
"The Grandparents Effect in Social Mobility: Evidence from British Birth Cohort Studies" by Tak Wing Chan and Vikki Boliver is published in the online early edition of the American Sociological Review. It will appear in the August print edition of the journal.
The study found that the social class position of the maternal grandfather had a slightly stronger influence on the class position of grandchildren than the paternal grandfather.
The paper cites other studies showing that in Britain around half of all grandparents of very young grandchildren see them at least once a week; and around one third of all families with working mothers rely on grandparents for childcare. Beyond the grandchildren's formative years, wealthy grandparents might make financial transfers to help pay for their grandchildren's education and well-connected grandparents might use their network to help secure jobs for their grandchildren, suggests the study.
The three birth cohort studies followed large and nationally representative samples of British born men and women from birth into adulthood. The first, the National Study of Health and Development, follows a sample of those born in one week in March 1946. The second study, the National Child Development Study, follows individuals born in one week in March 1958. And the third, the British Cohort Study, follows people born in one week in April 1970.
The study uses the UK Register General social class scheme to categorize the different social classes.
About the American Sociological Association and the American Sociological Review
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The American Sociological Review is the ASA's flagship journal.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Maria Coyle, University of Oxford Press Office, at +44 (0)1865 280534 or press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk.
Climbing the social ladder is strongly influenced by your grandparents' class
2013-07-01
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Tallying the wins and losses of policy
2013-07-01
In the past decade, China as sunk some impressive numbers to preserve its forests, but until now there hasn't been much data to give a true picture of how it has simultaneously affected both the people and the environment.
Michigan State University, partnered with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has capitalized on their long history of research in the Wolong Nature Reserve to get a complete picture of the environmental and socioeconomic effects of payments for ecosystem services programs.
"Performance and prospects of payments for ecosystem services programs: evidence ...
Tobacco control policies stop people from smoking and save lives
2013-07-01
WASHINGTON — Tobacco control measures put in place in 41 countries between 2007 and 2010 will prevent some 7.4 million premature deaths by 2050, according to a study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization today.
The study is one of the first to look at the effect of measures since the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) was established in 2005. Jt demonstrates the success of the WHO FCTC in reducing tobacco use and, thus, saving lives.
"It's a spectacular finding that by implementing these simple tobacco control ...
Observing live gene expression in the body
2013-07-01
Most of our physiological functions fluctuate throughout the day. They are coordinated by a central clock in the brain and by local oscillators, present in virtually every cell. Many molecular gearwheels of this internal clock have been described by Ueli Schibler, professor at the Faculty of Science of the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland. To study how the central clock synchronizes subordinate oscillators, the researcher's group used a variety of genetic and technological tools developed in collaboration with a team of UNIGE physicians. In this way, the scientists ...
Cancer is a result of a default cellular 'safe mode,' physicist proposes
2013-07-01
With death rates from cancer have remained largely unchanged over the past 60 years, a physicist is trying to shed more light on the disease with a very different theory of its origin that traces cancer back to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago.
In this month's special issue of Physics World devoted to the "physics of cancer", Paul Davies, principal investigator at Arizona State University's Center for Convergence of Physical Sciences and Cancer Biology, explains his radical new theory.
Davies was brought in to lead the centre in 2009 having ...
New understanding of tiny RNA molecules could have far-ranging medical applications
2013-07-01
LA JOLLA, CA – June 30, 2013 – A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has identified a family of tiny RNA molecules that work as powerful regulators of the immune response in mammals. Mice who lack these RNA molecules lose their normal infection-fighting ability, whereas mice that overproduce them develop a fatal autoimmune syndrome.
"This finding gives us insights into immune regulation that could be very helpful in a range of medical applications, from viral vaccines to treatments for autoimmune diseases," said Changchun Xiao, assistant professor ...
The quantum secret to alcohol reactions in space
2013-07-01
Chemists have discovered that an 'impossible' reaction at cold temperatures actually occurs with vigour, which could change our understanding of how alcohols are formed and destroyed in space.
To explain the impossible, the researchers propose that a quantum mechanical phenomenon, known as 'quantum tunnelling', is revving up the chemical reaction. They found that the rate at which the reaction occurs is 50 times greater at minus 210 degrees Celsius than at room temperature.
It's the harsh environment that makes space-based chemistry so difficult to understand; the extremely ...
Penn Medicine researchers discover link between fear and sound perception
2013-07-01
PHILADELPHIA - Anyone who's ever heard a Beethoven sonata or a Beatles song knows how powerfully sound can affect our emotions. But it can work the other way as well – our emotions can actually affect how we hear and process sound. When certain types of sounds become associated in our brains with strong emotions, hearing similar sounds can evoke those same feelings, even far removed from their original context. It's a phenomenon commonly seen in combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in whom harrowing memories of the battlefield can be ...
Liver protein crucial for pregnancy
2013-07-01
This news release is available in French. A protein first shown to function in the liver plays a crucial role in pregnancy in mice and has a key role in the human menstrual cycle, according to researchers at the University of Montreal. Mice that were genetically engineered not to produce the liver receptor homolog-1 (Lrh-1) molecule were unable to create the uterine conditions necessary for establishing and sustaining pregnancy, resulting in the formation of defective placentas. The researchers then showed that Lhr-1 was present in the human uterus and the essential ...
Is that bacteria dead yet?
2013-07-01
Researchers at EPFL have built a matchbox-sized device that can test for the presence of bacteria in a couple of minutes, instead of up to several weeks. A nano-lever vibrates in the presence of bacterial activity, while a laser reads the vibration and translates it into an electrical signal that can be easily read—the absence of a signal signifies the absence of bacteria. Thanks to this method, it is quick and easy to determine if a bacteria has been effectively treated by an antibiotic, a crucial medical tool especially for resistant strains. Easily used in clinics, it ...
Diamond catalyst shows promise in breaching age-old barrier
2013-07-01
MADISON -- In the world, there are a lot of small molecules people would like to get rid of, or at least convert to something useful, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist Robert J. Hamers.
Think carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for far-reaching effects on global climate. Nitrogen is another ubiquitous small-molecule gas that can be transformed into the valuable agricultural fertilizer ammonia. Plants perform the chemical reduction of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia as a matter of course, but for humans to do that in an industrial setting, ...