The Italian Mobility Regime: 1985-1997

The paper deals with changes in absolute and relative intergenerational mobility patterns experienced in Italy during the period 1985-1997. The analyses reported in it are based on data collected, respectively, by the National Survey on Social Mobility carried out in 1985 and the first wave of the Italian Households Longitudinal Survey carried out in 1997. Among the respondents to the 1985 survey all the 1,640 men and the 764 women in the labour force and aged 24-65 at the time of the interview were studied, while from the 1997 survey 2,593 men and 1,750 women, in the same age and labour force conditions mentioned above, were selected. Intergenerational mobility processes were studied from the perspective of social classes formation and action. Classes of origin and classes of destination were coded according to a seven-fold version of EGP class scheme. Rates of absolute social mobility were studied using standard mobility tables, while the patterns of social fluidity were analysed on the basis of a hybrid version of topological log-linear models. Both absolute and relative aspects of social mobility were studied separately for men and for women. The main results of the study are as follows. Absolute rates of intergenerational mobility have remained high and substantially stable during the period 1985-1997, with the only remarkable exception of men’s upward mobility, which increased by seven percentage points. On the contrary, the level of inequality in the mobility chances has displayed some more interesting and variegated changes. First, among both men and women, the intergenerational exchange between working classes not in agriculture and the white collars position has become somewhat more difficult in 1997 than it used to be in 1985. Second, the propensity to intergenerational immobility displayed by the sons of farmers and agricultural dependent workers has considerably decreased during the period studied. Third, the barriers separating the sons of agricultural working class from the white collars class have weakened. Fourth, the intergenerational movements between the urban petty bourgeoisie and the service class have become easier. All in all, the paper proves that in 1997 the Italian society is somewhat more open and fluid than it was in 1985.