E Bukodi
Biographic Data
| ID | 40173 |
|---|---|
| NAME | E Bukodi |
| GIVEN NAMES | E |
| FAMILY NAME | Bukodi |
| SIGNATURE | BUKODI E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8277-2829 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 586 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 48 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The Social Origins and Education of the British Civil Service Elite , 1945–2022
We provide a fuller account than previously available of the extent of change in the social backgrounds of the British civil service elite from 1945 onwards. We consider our findings in relation to questions of meritocracy in recruitment to the elite and of the representativeness of the elite of the population at large. We also address the question of whether a “generalist” orientation persists within the service. We show that there have been cha…
Understanding trends in social fluidity in Western Europe
We start from a general theory of intergenerational class mobility previously proposed as an alternative to the ‘liberal’ theory. In further evaluating these theories, we report empirical analyses of relations within the origins–education–destinations (OED) triangle, drawing on data for individuals born 1923–1977 in 17 European societies. In contrast with earlier research, we treat education in relative terms. We find that the tendency for fluidi…
Variation in the social composition of the UK academic elite
In this paper, we complement a previous study of the UK natural science elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, with a comparable study of the humanities and social sciences elites, as represented by Fellows of the British Academy. We seek to establish how far similarities and differences exist in the social composition of these three academic elites and in the routes that their members have followed into elite positions. We are al…
Social class and earnings trajectories in the UK
Social stratification in science
We start out from Harriet Zuckerman’s study of the US scientific ultra-elite of Nobel laureates, in which Robert Merton's idea of ‘Matthew effects’ as a key mechanism in the creation of social inequalities was first introduced. We then consider two issues arising from critical commentary on this study by Elisabeth Crawford, a historian of science. First, how far can a scientific ultra-elite be shown to exist as a collectivity that is socially dis…
The changing class and educational composition of the UK political elite since 1945
Debates over the changing nature of the UK political elite have focused on questions of representation and the extent of class convergence between the leaderships of the Conservative and Labour parties. We present a new comprehensive survey of the class and educational composition of the membership of Conservative and Labour cabinets and shadow cabinets since 1945. Some convergence in the class composition of the leaderships is apparent, but intr…
Continuing complexity
We report on continuing research on the UK scientific elite, intended to illustrate a proposed new approach to elite studies and based on a prosopography of Fellows of the Royal Society born from 1900. We extend analyses previously reported of Fellows' social origins and secondary schooling to take in their university careers as under- and postgraduates. The composite term 'Oxbridge', as often applied in elite studies, is called into question, as…
Social class and age-earnings trajectories in 14 European countries
In this paper, we seek to contribute to ongoing discussions of the relationship between income and class in analyses of social inequality and mobility. We argue that while class has sometimes been taken as a proxy for long-term earnings levels, it is of greater importance, at least when treated in terms of the EGP schema or the European Socio-Economic Classification (ESEC), in capturing differences in age-earnings trajectories. Moving beyond prev…
The Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2022
The Social Mobility Commission's most recent annual report is entitled State of the Nation 2022: A Fresh Approach to Social Mobility . We examine what in the report is new, whether explicitly or implicitly, and how far the newness serves to enhance our understanding of social mobility in Britain today and is of relevance to problems and policy issues that arise. We find that the supposed greater attention to the findings of academic research is s…
Intergenerational class mobility in industrial and post-industrial societies
A large body of often rather complex findings on intergenerational social mobility has by now come into existence but theoretical development has not kept pace. In this paper, focusing specifically on class mobility in European nations and the US, we aim, first of all, to identify the main empirical regularities that have emerged from research, making the now standard distinction between absolute and relative mobility. Next, we review previous th…
The social origins and schooling of a scientific elite
We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows' social class origins and type of secondary schooling. From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come…
Stressful Life Events, Differential Vulnerability, and Depressive Symptoms
Depressive symptoms are disproportionately high among women and less educated individuals. One mechanism proposed to explain this is the differential vulnerability hypothesis-that these groups experience particularly strong increases in symptoms in response to stressful life events. We identify limitations to prior work and present evidence from a new approach to life stress research using the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Preliminarily, we re…
Intergenerational Class Mobility of Labour Market Entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s
This study examines over-time trends in intergenerational class mobility based on cohorts of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s. We calculate absolute and relative mobility rates, separately for men and women, using the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2016), the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2016), and the UK Labour Force Survey (2014-2017). Regarding absolute mobility, we find marked country differences in upw…
Meritocracy and Populism – Is There a Connection?
In three recent critiques of meritocracy – Markovits (2019), Sandel (2020) and Goodhart (2020) – the argument is advanced that the failing pursuit of an education based meritocracy by mainstream political parties, together with the persistence of meritocratic discourse, have generated status discontents that readily translate into support for populist movements and parties. We consider how far recent research can provide empirical grounding for t…
The case for studying the intergenerational transmission of social (dis)advantage
Our article “Understanding the mobility chances of children from working-class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?” examines the role of cognitive ability and peoples’ sense of control over their lives in mediating the effects of individuals’ social background on their educational attainment and on their labor market position (Betthäuser et al., 2020a). The article takes as its starting point the pers…
Elite Studies
After a period of declining interest in elites among social scientists, elite studies are now reviving. But it is important to understand why the decline occurred. We examine the largely contradictory explanations put forward by John Scott and Mike Savage and their related proposals for new research. We suggest an alternative approach that, we believe, would prove more rewarding. This entails treating elites as ‘small‐N’ entities, clearly distinc…
Primary ’ Factors in Intergenerational Class Mobility in Europe
There is little consensus in past research regarding the sources of cross-national variation in relative rates of intergenerational class mobility. We argue for the importance of distinguishing between ‘primary’ factors that explain why inequalities in relative chances of mobility exist in the first place, and ‘secondary’ factors that explain variation in these chances. Our main aim is to identify primary factors. We follow Erikson and Goldthorpe…
Primary and secondary effects of social origins on educational attainment
We aim to bring together two current strands of research into inequalities in individuals' educational attainment that are associated with their social origins: that concerned with the "primary" and "secondary" effects of social origins in creating inequalities, and that concerned with the relation between these inequalities and different components of social origins, taken to represent different forms of parental resources. Our main findings are…
Double Trouble
A now-substantial literature claims that job loss and union dissolution (the end of a marriage or cohabiting relationship) each increase individuals' risk of the other, highlighting that major negative life events in the labour market and family can spill over across domains. We address three limitations of this research using UK data. First, these associations might arise from unmeasured factors which jointly predispose individuals to the two ev…
Intergenerational Class Mobility among Men and Women in Europe
In this article, we address two inter-related questions. Are there gender differences in the level and the pattern of intergenerational class mobility? If so, do these differences show up in a uniform fashion in Europe? To answer these questions, we use a newly constructed comparative data set that allows us to examine how far differences between men and women in absolute and relative mobility can still be characterized in the same way as in the …
Understanding the mobility chances of children from working-class backgrounds in Britain
Research in social stratification has shown that children from working-class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro-level processes that account for this empirical regularity. Our study examines the roles of two individual-level characteristics-cognitive ability and …
Persistence of the social’
Intergenerational Class Mobility in Europe
Comparative research into intergenerational social mobility has been typically restricted to a relatively small number of countries. The aim of this paper is to widen the perspective, and to provide an up-to-date account of rates of intergenerational class mobility across 30 European countries, using a newly-constructed comparative data-set based on the European Social Survey. Absolute mobility rates are found to vary quite widely with national d…
Falling from grace' and 'rising from rags
Cognitive Ability, Lifelong Learning, and Social Mobility in Britain
There is evidence to show that, even among individuals who have relatively high levels of cognitive ability, coming from disadvantaged social origins hinders their chances of securing high levels of qualification and advantaged labour market positions. But it has been argued that lifelong learning could provide second chances for these people through providing an alternative route to high qualifications. The main objective of this article is to e…
Decomposing 'Social Origins
Divergent findings on trends in inequalities in educational attainment associated with individuals’ social origins have led to much discussion of how far these reflect real differences by place and time or, rather, differences in research procedures. But in this latter regard, one issue has received relatively little attention: i.e. that of the conceptualization and measurement of social origins. We propose decomposing social origins into parenta…
The mobility problem in Britain
Social mobility is now a matter of greater political concern in Britain than at any time previously. However, the data available for the determination of mobility trends are less adequate today than two or three decades ago. It is widely believed in political and in media circles that social mobility is in decline. But the evidence so far available from sociological research, focused on intergenerational class mobility, is not supportive of this …
Falling from grace' and 'rising from rags
The effects of social origins and cognitive ability on educational attainment
In previous work we have shown that in Britain and Sweden alike parental class, parental status and parental education have independent effects on individuals' educational attainment. In this paper we extend our analyses, first by also including measures of individuals' early-life cognitive ability, and second by bringing our results for Britain and Sweden into direct comparative form. On the basis of extensive birth-cohort data for both countrie…
Educational attainment - relative or absolute - as a mediator of intergenerational class mobility in Britain
Intergenerational Class Mobility in Europe
Comparative research into intergenerational social mobility has been typically restricted to a relatively small number of countries. The aim of this paper is to widen the perspective, and to provide an up-to-date account of rates of intergenerational class mobility across 30 European countries, using a newly-constructed comparative data-set based on the European Social Survey. Absolute mobility rates are found to vary quite widely with national d…
The Direct Effect of Social Origins on Social Mobility Chances
In this article we pursue, using appropriate British birth cohort data, various issues that arise from recent research into the ‘direct’ effect of social origins on individuals’ social mobility chances: i.e. the effect that is not mediated by education and that can be seen as giving rise to non-meritocratic ‘glass floors’ and ‘glass ceilings’. We show that if educational level is determined at labour market entry, class destinations are significa…
Class Origins, Education and Occupational Attainment in Britain
Studies of intergenerational class mobility and of intragenerational occupational mobility have of late tended to diverge in their concerns and methodology. This reflects assumptions regarding the increasing part played by education in intergenerational mobility and the decreasing part played by class origins in intragenerational mobility, once education is controlled. The paper contributes to the questioning of these assumptions on empirical gro…
Primary and secondary effects of social origins on educational attainment
We aim to bring together two current strands of research into inequalities in individuals' educational attainment that are associated with their social origins: that concerned with the "primary" and "secondary" effects of social origins in creating inequalities, and that concerned with the relation between these inequalities and different components of social origins, taken to represent different forms of parental resources. Our main findings are…
Is Education Now Class Destiny? Class Histories across Three British Birth Cohorts
We investigate claims originating in the work of Daniel Bell that in post-industrial societies, educational qualifications obtained prior to labour market entry increasingly determine individuals’ class positions—while opportunities for achieving upward class mobility over the course of working life correspondingly diminish. We apply optimal matching techniques of sequence analysis as a basis for constructing typologies of class histories for men…
Persistence of the social’
Linking the macro to the micro
Recent research into educational inequalities has shown the importance of decomposing social origins into parental class, status and education, representing economic, socio-cultural and educational family resources, respectively. But we know little about how inequalities in educational attainment at the micro-level map onto institutional characteristics of educational systems at the macro-level, if we treat social origins in a multidimensional wa…
Intergenerational class mobility in industrial and post-industrial societies
A large body of often rather complex findings on intergenerational social mobility has by now come into existence but theoretical development has not kept pace. In this paper, focusing specifically on class mobility in European nations and the US, we aim, first of all, to identify the main empirical regularities that have emerged from research, making the now standard distinction between absolute and relative mobility. Next, we review previous th…
The relationship between work history and partnership formation in cohorts of British men born in 1958 and 1970
This study investigated the relationship between work history and partnership formation for British men. Two questions were asked: (i) Do instabilities in young men's careers lead to a higher probability of entering into cohabitation and, in turn, to a postponement of first marriage? (ii) Are there cohort differences in the effects of men's careers on their partnership decisions? The analyses were based on data from two birth-cohort studies for m…
Market versus Meritocracy
We review two conflicting arguments concerning meritocracy in modern societies. One argument, ‘meritocracy as functional imperative’ (MFI), derives from the American liberal tradition and sees the development of meritocracy, and especially of education-based meritocracy, as essential to the technological and economic dynamism of such societies. The other argument, ‘market versus meritocracy’ (MVM), derives from the European liberal tradition and …
Cumulative Inequalities over the Life-Course
This paper examines the possibility that life-long learning promotes intergenerational class mobility. The following two research questions are asked. Is it the case that further education provides individuals coming from less advantaged origins with a second chance to improve on their educational attainment? Is it the case that the returns to further qualifications, in terms of chances of upward class career mobility, are greater for children fr…
Bad Start
This article aims to examine gender and cohort differences in life-course occupational mobility in Britain and in particular the strength of the effects of career entry on subsequent upward or downward mobility. Does a ‘bad start’ in working life typically result in being trapped in the bottom tier of the occupational hierarchy or can it represent a stepping-stone towards more rewarding positions? Are there any gender differences in the effects o…
Elite Studies
After a period of declining interest in elites among social scientists, elite studies are now reviving. But it is important to understand why the decline occurred. We examine the largely contradictory explanations put forward by John Scott and Mike Savage and their related proposals for new research. We suggest an alternative approach that, we believe, would prove more rewarding. This entails treating elites as ‘small‐N’ entities, clearly distinc…
Understanding the mobility chances of children from working-class backgrounds in Britain
Research in social stratification has shown that children from working-class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro-level processes that account for this empirical regularity. Our study examines the roles of two individual-level characteristics-cognitive ability and …
Serial Cohabitation among Men in Britain
Why have relative rates of class mobility become more equal among women inBritain
In a previous paper it has been shown that across three cohorts of men and women born in Britain in 1946, 1958 and 1970 a gender difference exists in regard to relative rates of class mobility. For men these rates display an essential stability but for women they become more equal. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the causes of this trend-or, that is, of increasing social fluidity-among women. We begin by considering a refined ver…
Social stratification and cultural consumption in Hungary
The social origins and schooling of a scientific elite
We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows' social class origins and type of secondary schooling. From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come…
Intergenerational Class Mobility among Men and Women in Europe
In this article, we address two inter-related questions. Are there gender differences in the level and the pattern of intergenerational class mobility? If so, do these differences show up in a uniform fashion in Europe? To answer these questions, we use a newly constructed comparative data set that allows us to examine how far differences between men and women in absolute and relative mobility can still be characterized in the same way as in the …
Union Disruption in Hungary
This article examines the impact of cultural background, human capital, and labor force participation on union disruption. To study these relationships, retrospective data are examined on the marital history of Hungarian residents taken from a national probability sample in 1992. The discrete time event history approach.is used to show the effects of different predictors on the odds of union disruption. Strong evidence was found for the positive …
Who are the Entrepreneurs and Where Do They Come From? Transition to Self-employment Before, Under and After Communism in Hungary
(2000). Who are the Entrepreneurs and Where Do They Come From? Transition to Self-employment Before, Under and After Communism in Hungary. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 147-171
Union Disruption in Hungary
This article examines the impact of cultural background, human capital, and labor force participation on union disruption. To study these relationships, retrospective data are examined on the marital history of Hungarian residents taken from a national probability sample in 1992. The discrete time event history approach.is used to show the effects of different predictors on the odds of union disruption. Strong evidence was found for the positive …
Changes in Intergenerational Class Mobility in Hungary, 1973–2000
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 c…
Social stratification and cultural consumption in Hungary
Social stratification and cultural participation in Hungary
Since the collapse of communism in Hungary, major changes have occurred in the level and pattern of cultural consumption. Although the overall amount of leisure time has increased, there has been a significant decline in the amount of time spent attending concerts, theatres and cinemas or visiting museums (Falussy, 2004). In national surveys, the percentage of people who said they have attended a theatre in the year preceding the interview was 36…
Social Status and Cultural Consumption
How does cultural hierarchy relate to social hierarchy? Do the more advantaged consume 'high' culture, while the less advantaged consume popular culture? Or has cultural consumption in contemporary societies become individualised to such a degree that there is no longer any social basis for cultural consumption? Leading scholars from the UK, the USA, Chile, France, Hungary and the Netherlands systematically examine the social stratification of ar…
Market versus Meritocracy
We review two conflicting arguments concerning meritocracy in modern societies. One argument, ‘meritocracy as functional imperative’ (MFI), derives from the American liberal tradition and sees the development of meritocracy, and especially of education-based meritocracy, as essential to the technological and economic dynamism of such societies. The other argument, ‘market versus meritocracy’ (MVM), derives from the European liberal tradition and …
Bad Start
This article aims to examine gender and cohort differences in life-course occupational mobility in Britain and in particular the strength of the effects of career entry on subsequent upward or downward mobility. Does a ‘bad start’ in working life typically result in being trapped in the bottom tier of the occupational hierarchy or can it represent a stepping-stone towards more rewarding positions? Are there any gender differences in the effects o…
Class Origins, Education and Occupational Attainment in Britain
Studies of intergenerational class mobility and of intragenerational occupational mobility have of late tended to diverge in their concerns and methodology. This reflects assumptions regarding the increasing part played by education in intergenerational mobility and the decreasing part played by class origins in intragenerational mobility, once education is controlled. The paper contributes to the questioning of these assumptions on empirical gro…
Serial Cohabitation among Men in Britain
The relationship between work history and partnership formation in cohorts of British men born in 1958 and 1970
This study investigated the relationship between work history and partnership formation for British men. Two questions were asked: (i) Do instabilities in young men's careers lead to a higher probability of entering into cohabitation and, in turn, to a postponement of first marriage? (ii) Are there cohort differences in the effects of men's careers on their partnership decisions? The analyses were based on data from two birth-cohort studies for m…
Decomposing 'Social Origins
Divergent findings on trends in inequalities in educational attainment associated with individuals’ social origins have led to much discussion of how far these reflect real differences by place and time or, rather, differences in research procedures. But in this latter regard, one issue has received relatively little attention: i.e. that of the conceptualization and measurement of social origins. We propose decomposing social origins into parenta…
The effects of social origins and cognitive ability on educational attainment
In previous work we have shown that in Britain and Sweden alike parental class, parental status and parental education have independent effects on individuals' educational attainment. In this paper we extend our analyses, first by also including measures of individuals' early-life cognitive ability, and second by bringing our results for Britain and Sweden into direct comparative form. On the basis of extensive birth-cohort data for both countrie…
Educational attainment - relative or absolute - as a mediator of intergenerational class mobility in Britain
The mobility problem in Britain
Social mobility is now a matter of greater political concern in Britain than at any time previously. However, the data available for the determination of mobility trends are less adequate today than two or three decades ago. It is widely believed in political and in media circles that social mobility is in decline. But the evidence so far available from sociological research, focused on intergenerational class mobility, is not supportive of this …
Is Education Now Class Destiny? Class Histories across Three British Birth Cohorts
We investigate claims originating in the work of Daniel Bell that in post-industrial societies, educational qualifications obtained prior to labour market entry increasingly determine individuals’ class positions—while opportunities for achieving upward class mobility over the course of working life correspondingly diminish. We apply optimal matching techniques of sequence analysis as a basis for constructing typologies of class histories for men…
Linking the macro to the micro
Recent research into educational inequalities has shown the importance of decomposing social origins into parental class, status and education, representing economic, socio-cultural and educational family resources, respectively. But we know little about how inequalities in educational attainment at the micro-level map onto institutional characteristics of educational systems at the macro-level, if we treat social origins in a multidimensional wa…
Why have relative rates of class mobility become more equal among women inBritain
In a previous paper it has been shown that across three cohorts of men and women born in Britain in 1946, 1958 and 1970 a gender difference exists in regard to relative rates of class mobility. For men these rates display an essential stability but for women they become more equal. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the causes of this trend-or, that is, of increasing social fluidity-among women. We begin by considering a refined ver…
The Direct Effect of Social Origins on Social Mobility Chances
In this article we pursue, using appropriate British birth cohort data, various issues that arise from recent research into the ‘direct’ effect of social origins on individuals’ social mobility chances: i.e. the effect that is not mediated by education and that can be seen as giving rise to non-meritocratic ‘glass floors’ and ‘glass ceilings’. We show that if educational level is determined at labour market entry, class destinations are significa…
Cumulative Inequalities over the Life-Course
This paper examines the possibility that life-long learning promotes intergenerational class mobility. The following two research questions are asked. Is it the case that further education provides individuals coming from less advantaged origins with a second chance to improve on their educational attainment? Is it the case that the returns to further qualifications, in terms of chances of upward class career mobility, are greater for children fr…
Income Inequality, Living Standards, and Intergenerational Social Mobility
This chapter deals with mobility across generations, paying particular attention to the now-common notion that greater inequality in the distribution of income is associated with less mobility and equality of opportunity—as encapsulated in the so-called ‘Great Gatsby Curve’. The chapter first discusses the conceptual and empirical issues that arise with respect to this hypothesis. Focusing on mobility in terms of social class, it uses a new datas…
Social Mobility and Education in Britain
Building upon extensive research into modern British society, this book traces out trends in social mobility and their relation to educational inequalities, with surprising results. Contrary to what is widely supposed, Bukodi and Goldthorpe's findings show there has been no overall decline in social mobility – though downward mobility is tending to rise and upward mobility to fall - and Britain is not a distinctively low mobility society. However…
Persistence of the social’
Persistence of the social’
Intergenerational Class Mobility in Europe
Comparative research into intergenerational social mobility has been typically restricted to a relatively small number of countries. The aim of this paper is to widen the perspective, and to provide an up-to-date account of rates of intergenerational class mobility across 30 European countries, using a newly-constructed comparative data-set based on the European Social Survey. Absolute mobility rates are found to vary quite widely with national d…
Sociology (45 works) · Political science (37 works) · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies (34 works) · Economics (31 works) · Social science (27 works) · Demographic economics (26 works) · Law (25 works) · Social class (24 works) · Social mobility (24 works) · Psychology (21 works)