Vertical social mobility: examples. Abstract: Social mobility

People are in constant motion, and society is in development. The totality of social movements of people in society, i.e. change in status is called social mobility.

Under social mobility refers to the movement of an individual or group up, down or horizontally. Social mobility is characterized by the direction, variety and distance of social movements of people in society (individually and in groups).

Human history is made up not only of individual movements, but also of the movement of large social groups. The landed aristocracy is being replaced by the financial bourgeoisie, low-skilled professions are being squeezed out of modern production by representatives of the so-called “white collars” - engineers, programmers, operators of robotic complexes. Wars and revolutions reshaped the social structure of society, raising some to the top of the pyramid and lowering others.

Similar changes took place in Russian society after the October Revolution of 1917. They are still taking place today, when the business elite replaced the party elite.

The movement up and down is called vertical mobility, it is of two types: descending (top to bottom) and ascending (bottom to top). horizontal mobility such a movement is called, in which an individual changes his social position or profession to an equivalent one. A special variety is intergenerational, or intergenerational, mobility. It refers to the change in the status of children compared to the status of parents. Intergenerational mobility was studied by A.V. Kirch, and in the global historical aspect - A. Pirenne and L. Febvre. One of the originators of the theories social stratification and social mobility was P. Sorokin. Foreign sociologists usually link these two theories.

Soviet sociologists used other terms. Transition between classes they called interclass movements, and the transition within the same class - intraclass. These terms were introduced into Soviet sociology in the 1970s. Interclass movements meant a transition from one class to another, for example, if a native of the working environment graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and became a teacher, thus moving into the stratum of the intelligentsia. If a worker, peasant, or intellectual raised the level of education and moved from a low-skilled position to a medium- or highly-skilled position, while remaining a worker, peasant, or intellectual, then they made intra-class vertical movements.

Exist two main types social mobility - intergenerational and intragenerational, and two main types - vertical and horizontal. They, in turn, break up into subspecies and subtypes.

Vertical mobility implies movement from one stratum to another. Depending on the direction of movement, one speaks of upward mobility(social rise, upward movement) and about downward mobility(social descent, downward movement). There is a certain asymmetry between ascent and descent: everyone wants to go up and no one wants to go down the social ladder. Usually, ascent- phenomenon voluntary a descent - forced.

Promotion is an example of upward mobility of an individual, dismissal, demotion is an example of downward mobility. Vertical mobility is a change by a person during his life of a high status to a low one, or vice versa. For example, the movement of a person from the status of a plumber to the position of president of a corporation, as well as the reverse movement, is an example of vertical mobility.

Horizontal mobility implies the transition of an individual from one social group to another, located at the same level. An example is the movement from an Orthodox to a Catholic religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family (parental) to another (one's own, newly formed), from one profession to another. Such movements occur without a noticeable change in social position in the vertical direction. Horizontal mobility implies a change by a person during his life of one status to another, which is approximately equivalent. Let's say a person was first a plumber and then became a carpenter.

A form of horizontal mobility is geographical mobility. It does not imply a change in status or group, but a movement from one place to another while maintaining the same status. An example is international and interregional tourism, moving from a city to a village and back, moving from one enterprise to another.

If a change of status is added to a change of place, then geographic mobility becomes migration. If a villager comes to the city to visit relatives, then this is geographic mobility. If he moved to the city for permanent residence and got a job here, then this is migration.

Classification of social mobility can be carried out according to other criteria. So, for example, one distinguishes individual mobility, when movements down, up or horizontally occur in an individual independently of others, and group mobility, when movements occur collectively, for example, after a social revolution, the old ruling class cedes its positions to the new ruling class.

On other grounds, mobility can be classified, say, into spontaneous or organized. An example of spontaneous mobility is the movement of residents of the near abroad to large cities of Russia for the purpose of earning money. Organized mobility (moving a person or entire groups up, down or horizontally) is controlled by the state. These movements can be carried out: a) with the consent of the people themselves, b) without their consent. An example of organized voluntary mobility in Soviet time can serve as the movement of young people from different cities and villages to Komsomol construction projects, the development of virgin lands, etc. An example of organized involuntary mobility is repatriation(resettlement) of Chechens and Ingush during the war with German Nazism.

It should be distinguished from organized mobility structural mobility. It is caused by changes in the structure of the national economy and occurs against the will and consciousness of individual individuals. For example, the disappearance or reduction of industries or professions leads to the displacement of large masses of people.

Social mobility can be measured using two metrics. In the first system, the unit of account is individual, in the second - the status. Consider the first system first.

Under mobility refers to the number of individuals who have moved up the social ladder in a vertical direction over a certain period of time. If the volume is calculated by the number of moved individuals, then it is called absolute and if the ratio of this quantity over the entire population, then relative volume and is expressed as a percentage.

Total the volume, or scale, of mobility determines the number of movements across all strata together, and differentiated - for individual strata, layers, classes. The fact that in an industrial society two-thirds of the population is mobile refers to the total volume, and 37% of the children of workers who have become employees belongs to the differentiated volume.

Scale of social mobility is defined as the percentage of those who have changed, in comparison with their fathers, their social status. When Hungary was capitalist, i.e. in the 1930s, the scale of mobility was 50%. In socialist Hungary (60s) it rose to 64%, and in 1983 to 72%. As a result of socialist transformations, Hungarian society became as open as the developed capitalist countries.

With good reason this conclusion is applicable to the USSR. Western European and American scholars who conducted comparative studies found that mobility in Eastern European countries is higher than in developed capitalist countries.

The change in mobility for individual layers is described by two indicators. The first one is coefficient of mobility of exit from the social stratum. It shows, for example, how many sons of skilled workers became intellectuals or peasants. Second - coefficient of mobility of entry into the social stratum, indicating from which layers, for example, the layer of intellectuals is replenished. It reveals the social origin of people.

Degree of mobility in society is determined by two factors: the range of mobility in society and the conditions that allow people to move.

Range of mobility(amount mobility), which characterizes a given society, depends on how many different statuses exist in it. The more statuses, the more opportunity a person has to move from one status to another.

In traditional society, the number of high-status positions remained approximately constant, so there was a moderate downward mobility of offspring from high-status families. Feudal society is characterized by a very small number of vacancies for high positions for those who had a low status. Some sociologists believe that, most likely, there was no upward mobility.

Industrial society expanded mobility range. It is characterized by a much larger number of different statuses. The first decisive factor in social mobility is the level of economic development. During periods of economic depression, the number of high-status positions decreases, while low-status positions expand, so downward mobility dominates. It intensifies in those periods when people lose their jobs and at the same time new layers enter the labor market. On the contrary, during periods of active economic development, many new high-status positions appear. The increased demand for workers to occupy them is the main cause of upward mobility.

The main trend in the development of an industrial society is that it simultaneously increases wealth and the number of high-status positions, which in turn leads to an increase in the size of the middle class, whose ranks are replenished by people from lower strata.

The second factor of social mobility is the historical type of stratification. Caste and estate societies restrict social mobility by imposing severe restrictions on any change in status. Such societies are called closed.

If most of the statuses in a society are ascribed or prescribed, then the range of mobility in it is much lower than in a society based on individual achievement. In a pre-industrial society, upward mobility was not great, since legal laws and traditions practically closed the peasants' access to the estate of landowners. There is a well-known medieval proverb: “Once a peasant, forever a peasant”.

In an industrial society, which sociologists refer to as a type open societies above all, individual merits and achieved status are valued. In such a society, the level of social mobility is quite high.

Sociologists also note the following pattern: the wider the opportunities for moving up, the stronger people believe in the availability of vertical mobility channels for them, and the more they believe in this, the more they strive to move up, i.e. the higher the level of social mobility in society. Conversely, in a class society, people do not believe in the possibility of changing their status without having wealth, pedigree or the patronage of the monarch. In 1986, the Gallup Institute conducted a comparative study of the two countries: 45% of the British said that the main way to advance in life is to inherit the wealth and status of their parents; while 43% of Americans, on the contrary, considered the only way to achieve success “ hard work and own efforts. Estates are strong in England. From childhood, the average American is focused on the fact that he must make his own destiny with his own hands.

When studying social mobility, sociologists pay attention to the following characteristics:

Number and size of classes and status groups;

The amount of mobility of individuals and families from one group to another;

The degree of differentiation of social strata by types of behavior (lifestyle) and the level of class consciousness;

The type or amount of property owned by a person, occupation, as well as the values ​​that determine one or another status;

Distribution of power between classes and status groups.

Of the listed criteria, two are especially important: the amount (or amount) of mobility and the differentiation of status groups. They are used to distinguish one type of stratification from another. In the US and the USSR, as in most other industrial societies, there was an open structure: status was based on reaching and moving up and down the social ladder. Such movements occur quite often. In contrast, in India and most traditional societies, the system of stratification is closed: status is largely ascribed, and individual mobility is limited.

Upward movement is mainly due to education, wealth or membership in political party. Education plays an important role not only in obtaining a higher income or a more prestigious profession: the level of education is one of the hallmarks of belonging to a higher stratum. Wealth is a hallmark of status in the higher strata. American society is a stratified system with open classes. Although it is not a classless society, it retains the differentiation of people according to social status. It is an open class society in the sense that a person does not remain all his life in the class in which he was born.

Let's move on to consideration second scorecard mobility, where the unit of account is taken status or step in the social hierarchy. In this case, social mobility is understood as a change by an individual (group) of one status to another, located vertically or horizontally.

Scope of mobility- this is the number of people who have changed their previous status to another down, up or horizontally. Ideas about the movement of people up, down and horizontally in the social pyramid describe direction of mobility. Varieties of mobility are described typology social movements. Measure of mobility indicated step and volume social movements.

Mobility distance- this is the number of steps that individuals managed to climb or had to go down. The normal distance is considered to be moving one or two steps up or down. Most social transitions happen this way. Abnormal distance - an unexpected rise to the top of the social ladder or fall to its bottom.

Mobility distance unit speaks movement step. To describe the step of social movements, the concept of status is used: moving from a lower to a higher status is upward mobility; moving from higher to lower status - downward mobility. Movement can be one step (status), two or more steps (statuses) up, down and horizontally. A step can be measured in 1) statuses, 2) generations. Therefore, the following types are distinguished:

intergenerational mobility;

Intragenerational mobility;

Interclass mobility;

Intraclass mobility.

The concept of “group mobility” characterizes a society that is undergoing social changes, where the social significance of an entire class, estate, or stratum rises or falls. For example, October Revolution led to the rise of the Bolsheviks, who previously did not have a recognized high position, and the Brahmins in ancient India became the highest caste as a result of stubborn struggle, while earlier their caste was on the same level as the Kshatriya caste.

As P. Sorokin showed on a huge historical material, the following factors acted as the causes of group mobility:

social revolutions;

Foreign interventions, invasions;

Interstate wars;

Civil Warriors;

military coups;

Change of political regimes;

Replacing the old constitution with a new one;

Peasant uprisings;

Internecine struggle of aristocratic families;

Creation of an empire.

Group mobility takes place where there is a change in the very system of stratification, i.e. the very foundation of any society.

The geological metaphor that sociologists use to depict social stratification explains much about the mechanism of social mobility. However, drawing a mechanical analogy between rocks and social groups in society is fraught with artificial exaggerations and misunderstanding of the essence of the issue. A rigid analogy with rocks fixed in one place does not allow one to explain, for example, individual mobility. Particles of granite or clay are not able to move to another layer of the earth on their own. However, in human society individuals, having completed upward mobility, now and then move from one stratum to another. The more democratic the society, the freer the interstratal movement.

In this respect, authoritarian societies are very much like a rigidly fixed geological hierarchy. Slaves in ancient Rome rarely became free citizens, and medieval peasants could not throw off their serfdom. Similarly, in India, the transition from one caste to another is practically impossible. And in other non-democratic societies, the upward movement was even planned and regulated by the ruling elite. Thus, in the USSR there was a certain quota for admission to the party and holding leading positions of people from workers and peasants, while the advancement of representatives of the intelligentsia was artificially restrained.

Thus, the concept of group and individual mobility reveals the most essential difference between social and geological stratification. The idea of ​​a rigid and immovable hierarchy, borrowed from the realm of the natural sciences, is applicable to social sciences only to a certain extent.

Social mobility in the USSR was somewhat similar to that in the United States. The similarity is explained by the fact that both countries are industrialized powers, and the difference is explained by the peculiarity of political regimes. Thus, studies by American and Soviet sociologists, covering approximately the same period (70s), but carried out independently of each other, gave the same figures: up to 40% of employees in the United States and Russia come from a working environment, in In the United States and Russia, more than two-thirds of the population is involved in social mobility.

Another regularity is also confirmed: social mobility in both countries is most influenced not by the profession and education of parents, but by the son's or daughter's own achievements. The higher the education, the more chances to move up the social ladder. In both the US and the USSR, another curious fact has been discovered: a well-educated son of a worker has just as much chance of advancement as a poorly educated person from the middle classes, in particular employees, although the second may be helped by parents. The specificity of the United States is a large influx of immigrants. Unskilled workers - immigrants, arriving in the country from all parts of the world, occupy the lower steps, displacing or hastening the advancement of Americans to the top. The same effect was exerted by migration from the countryside, and this applies not only to the United States, but also to the USSR.

In both countries upward mobility averaged 20% higher than the descending one. But both types of vertical mobility were inferior in their level to the level of horizontal mobility. This means the following: in both countries, the level of mobility is high (up to 70-80% of the population), but 70% is horizontal mobility, i.e. movement within the boundaries of the same class and even layer (stratum).

Even in the United States, where, according to popular belief, every shoe shiner can become a millionaire, the conclusion made back in 1927 by P. Sorokin remains valid: most people start their working careers on the same social level as their parents, and only a very few succeed in significantly move up. In other words, the average citizen moves one rung up or down during his life, and very few manage to step through several steps at once.

Thus, 10% of Americans, 7% of Japanese and Dutch, 9% of British, 2% of French, Germans and Danes, 1% of Italians rise from the worker to the upper middle class. To the factors of individual mobility, i.e. reasons that allow one person to achieve greater success than another, sociologists and the United States and the USSR attributed:

The social status of the family;

The level of education;

Nationality;

Physical and mental abilities, external data;

Upbringing;

Place of residence;

Profitable marriage.

Mobile individuals begin socialization in one class and end in another. They are literally torn between dissimilar cultures and lifestyles. They do not know how to behave, dress, talk in terms of the standards of another class. Often adaptation to new conditions remains very superficial. A typical example is Moliere's tradesman in the nobility. As a rule, it is more difficult for a woman to advance than a man. An increase in social status often occurs through an advantageous marriage. This applies not only to women, but also to men.

For seventy years, Soviet society, along with American society, was the most mobile society in the world. Free education, accessible to all layers, opened up to everyone the same opportunities for advancement that were only in the United States. Nowhere else in the world did the elite form literally from all walks of life.

Sociologists have long noticed this pattern: it has been noticed that during periods when society is undergoing serious changes, groups with an accelerated model of social mobility appear. So, in the 1930s, people who had recently been workers and peasants became “red directors”, while in pre-revolutionary times, to reach the position of “director”, at least 15 years of training were required and after that, many more years of production experience. A similar situation was observed in the early and mid-90s, which is confirmed by the research data of R. G. Gromov. Whereas a manager in the public sector had to go through an average of four or five career stages to reach the position of “director” (prior to 1985, this process was even longer), managers in the private sector reached this position already in the second stage.

However, the mass character in 1985-1993. it was descending mobility that acquired and became dominant, both at the individual and at the group level. Very few managed to achieve an increase in status, but the majority of Russians ended up at the lower levels of social stratification.

Soviet sociologists in the 1960s and 1980s quite actively studied inter- and intra-generational, as well as inter- and intra-class mobility. The main classes were the working class and the peasantry, and the intelligentsia was considered a class-like stratum.

Intergenerational mobility assumes that children reach a higher social position or descend to a lower level than their parents occupied. Example: A miner's son becomes an engineer. Intergenerational mobility is a change in the status of children relative to the status of their fathers. For example, the son of a plumber becomes the president of a corporation, or conversely, the son of the president of a corporation becomes a plumber. Intergenerational mobility is the most important form of social mobility. Its scale indicates the extent to which, in a given society, inequality passes from one generation to another. If intergenerational mobility is low, then this means that inequality has taken root in this society, and a person’s chances to change his fate do not depend on himself, but are predetermined by birth. In the case of significant intergenerational mobility, people achieve a new status through their own efforts, regardless of their origin. General direction of intergenerational youth mobility - from the group of workers physical labor to the group of knowledge workers.

In the early 70s, O.I. Shkaratan and V.O. Rukavishnikov conducted a comparative analysis of the structural models of the intergenerational dynamics of the social position of fathers and sons in societies that differ in social structure and type of culture. The method of “path” analysis was used, which is most often used in scientific research for building structural models. The research data for the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the USA, Japan and Austria were compared. It turned out that the indicators of the correlation between the social characteristics of the respondent's father and the respondent himself are close for the USSR and the USA. Thus, the relationship between the education of father and son in the USSR is 0.49, in the USA - 0.45; the socio-professional status of father and son (at the beginning of a working career) in the USSR - 0.24, in the USA - 0.42, etc. The younger generation in the USSR, the USA and other countries is characterized by a close relationship between their own education and socio-professional status (USSR - 0.57; USA - 0.60; Czechoslovakia - 0.65; Japan - 0.40; Austria - 0. 43) 411 .

International data show that people from the lower middle class, ie. white-collar workers, and the lower strata of the working class, i.e. blue-collar workers (including unskilled agricultural workers) most rarely inherited their fathers' occupations and were highly mobile. By contrast, upper-class and professional people more often inherited their parents' occupations 412 . Thus, a quite obvious pattern can be traced, which is confirmed by a theoretical analysis of the features of the social pyramid: the higher the social rank, the more often the profession is inherited, and the lower it is, the less often the occupation of parents is inherited.

Peter Blau and Otis Dunken also found out other features of social mobility in American society: the level of professional mobility here turned out to be quite high (the correlation coefficient between the socioeconomic status of father and son was +0.38). The status of the father influences the status of the son mainly through education, but the socio-economic position of the family also influences career opportunities, regardless of education.

It also turned out that rural youth who moved to the city achieve a higher position in comparison with their fathers than native city dwellers in comparison with their own. Against the background of their fathers, urban youth looked inactive, like a turtle. But only in comparison with their fathers. When comparing rural and urban youth with each other, i.e. when considering intragenerational mobility, the situation turned out to be rather the opposite. It turned out that the larger the former place of residence of the migrant, the more chances he had for professional success in the city. In fact, a direct relationship was revealed between the size of the settlement and the scale of professional achievements. This is understandable, since there are more schools, technical schools and colleges in the industrial center of large and medium sizes, therefore, there are more opportunities to get a good specialty. Whether the resident of these centers stays in place or moves to another city, town or village, his life chances are higher than 413 .

Intragenerational mobility takes place where the same individual, beyond comparison with the father, changes social positions several times throughout his life. Otherwise it is called social career. Example: a turner becomes an engineer, and then a shop manager, plant director, minister of the engineering industry. The first type of mobility refers to long-term and the second to short-term processes. In the first case, sociologists are more interested in interclass mobility, and in the second - the movement from the sphere of physical labor to the sphere of mental labor. Intra-generational mobility depends less on factors of origin in a changing society than in a stable one.

Upward mobility is not unique to America. All industrialized countries with democratic governments, low birth rates and an ideology of equal opportunity have a high rate of upward mobility in the period 1945-1965. The USSR belonged to such countries, but it did not have a low birth rate, but there was an extensive construction of industry, there was no democratic government, but there were no social barriers, there was an ideology of equal opportunities. During this period, up to 30% changed manual activities to non-manual ones in the USA, England and other European countries 414 . Most of the changes were related to intergenerational mobility - based on comparison of the status of father and son - rather than progress occurred during the life of the son.

The predominance of intergenerational mobility over intragenerational mobility indicates that the structure of the economy is determined by mobility factor. In other words, the main number of movements in professional structure down-up, horizontally can be explained in terms of societal variables rather than individual differences between workers.

If the father is a skilled carpenter (skilled worker manual labor), and his son is an employee of an insurance company (“white collar”), then the work of the son, his level of education and lifestyle correspond to his higher status rank than that of his father. But if most of the son's other peers also advance to the white-collar level, then the position of father and son, compared to all other workers, will not change significantly. Relative mobility means that, although the professional structure has changed towards an increase in the share of mental labor professions, the positions of father and son relative to other employees have not changed significantly.

class immobility occurs when the rank of a social class is reproduced unchanged from generation to generation. Researchers find a high level of class immobility in modern society. The bulk of mobility - intra- and intergenerational - occurs gradually, without dramatic changes. Only certain individuals rise or fall sharply, for example, outstanding athletes or rock stars. Success in the United States and in other modern societies is determined primarily by ascribed status - marital status. This is facilitated by the so-called deferred reward - postponing immediate gratification in order to achieve significant future goals 415 .

Stratification symbols also differ in the degree of openness of professional cells for beginners. To a large extent, the social rank of a married woman is determined by the status of her husband, and her mobility is measured by the difference between the professional status of her father and her husband.

Since attributed traits - gender, race, social class at birth - outweigh individual talent and intelligence in determining the length of education and the type of first job, analysts believe that there is hardly any reason to talk about a truly open class system.

The term “structural mobility”, or mobility based on demand, social needs, refers to societal factors that affect the coefficient of mobility. Thus, the types and number of available jobs depend on changes in the economic system, while the type and number of people who want to get a given job depends on the birth rate in a given generation. Based on this, we can estimate the probability of upward and downward mobility for different subgroups.

Industrialization opens new vacancies in vertical mobility. The development of industry three centuries ago required the transformation of the peasantry into a proletariat. In the late stage of industrialization, the working class became the largest part of the employed population. The main factor of vertical mobility was the education system. Industrialization is caused not only by interclass but also by intraclass changes. At the stage of conveyor or mass production at the beginning of the 20th century. the predominant group remained low- and unskilled workers. Mechanization and then automation required an expansion of the ranks of skilled and highly skilled workers. In the 1950s, 40% of the workers were poorly or unskilled. In 1966, 20% of them remained.

As unskilled labor was reduced, the need for employees, managers, businessmen grew. The sphere of industrial and agricultural labor narrowed, while the sphere of service and management expanded. Structural mobility is most clearly seen in the United States (Table 11.1).

Table 11.1

US Structural Mobility Dynamics: 1900-1980

	Streets
	Professionals and managers
	Merchants, employees: "white collars"
	Manual workers
	Blue Collar Service
	Farmers and agricultural workers

Source: Hess R., Markson E., Stien F. sociology. N.Y., 1991. P. 184.

In an industrial society, the structure of the national economy determines mobility. In other words, professional mobility in the USA, England, Russia or Japan does not depend on the individual characteristics of people, but on the structural features of the economy, the correlation of industries and the shifts taking place here. As shown in Table. 11.1, the number of people employed in agriculture in the United States decreased from 1900 to 1980 by 10 times. The small farmers became the respectable petty bourgeois class, and the agricultural laborers joined the ranks of the working class. The stratum of professionals and managers doubled over that period. The number of trade workers and clerks increased by 4 times.

Such transformations are characteristic of modern societies: from farm to factory in the early stages of industrialization and from factory to office in the later stages. Today, over 50% of the workforce is engaged in knowledge work, compared with 10-15% at the beginning of the century.

During this century, in the industrialized countries, vacancies in blue-collar jobs declined and jobs in managerial jobs expanded. But managerial vacancies were filled not by representatives of the workers, but by the middle class. However, the number of management jobs has grown faster than the number of middle class kids able to fill them. The vacuum formed in the 1950s was partly filled by working youth. This became possible due to the availability of higher education for ordinary Americans.

In the developed capitalist countries, industrialization was completed earlier than in the former socialist countries (USSR, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc.). The lag could not but affect social mobility: in the capitalist countries, the share of leaders and intelligentsia - immigrants from workers and peasants - is one third, and in the former socialist countries - three quarters. In long industrialized countries such as England, the share of workers of peasant origin is very low, there are more so-called hereditary workers. On the contrary, in Eastern European countries it is very high and sometimes reaches 50%.

It is due to structural mobility that the two opposite poles of the professional pyramid turned out to be the least mobile. In the former socialist countries the most closed were two layers - the layer of top managers and the layer of auxiliary workers located at the bottom of the pyramid - the most prestigious and most non-prestigious types of activity.

The course of economic policy proclaimed in Russia at the end of 1991, called “shock therapy” and continued in “voucher” privatization and conversion of the military-industrial complex, led the country to a deep crisis, which is systemic nature, those. covers all aspects of society. As a result, the structure of industry has changed for the worse. The sectors that were part of the military-industrial complex, where the production of science-intensive products was concentrated, as well as civil engineering, which produced, in particular, the production of machine tools, turbines, etc., suffered more than others. Mining and their primary processing (in metallurgy and chemistry) prevailed. The light and textile industries are in complete decline due to the displacement of their products by imported goods. Along with the decline in agricultural production and the substitution of domestic products by imports, a number of branches of the food industry are curtailing 416 .

Huge masses of employed people were released from the crisis industries, mainly medium and highly qualified specialists. Some of them emigrated abroad, some went into private business, opened their own small businesses, some went to the "shuttle business", and many were unemployed. Over 10 years, the number of people employed in science and scientific services has decreased from 3.4 to 1.5 million people; the majority moved to other industries, up to 1/10 went abroad 417 .

Production and research teams are weakening, disintegrating, and many simply disappear. Due to the lack of funds for the purchase of new equipment and the repair of old equipment, the purchase of fertilizers, etc. the layer of machine operators in the countryside is being reduced. The reduction in investment in the economy has led to the physical and moral aging of equipment in all sectors of the national economy. The backlog of Russia from developed countries in terms of the technical level of production has increased. The normal process of reproduction of the relevant social groups has been disrupted, since young people do not aspire to the sphere of industry and agriculture.

Thus, structural adjustment in Russia in the late 1990s led to horizontal and downward vertical mobility.

In fact, no studies of social mobility were conducted in the USSR until the 1960s, and the concept itself seemed rather dubious due to its “bourgeois” origin. It took extraordinary scientific courage to make this problem the object of scientific analysis 418 . Instead of the term “social mobility”, others were used, namely “social mobility”, “social movement”, “social movements”. According to M.I. Rutkevich and F.R. Filippova, “social displacement” is a broader concept than “social mobility”, since it characterizes not only variability, but also stability of development 419 . In their book Social Movements, these sociologists revealed the specifics of social mobility in the industrial and urbanized regions of the USSR, between generations and within them.

The all-Union study “Indicators of the social development of Soviet society”, carried out by the Institute of Sociological Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences (headed by G. V. Osipov), which covered workers and engineering and industrial intelligentsia in the main sectors of the national economy of nine regions, recorded contradictions in the development of Soviet society and its social structures. Until the beginning of the 1980s, there was a rather high dynamics of socio-structural changes, but since the late 1970s, society has lost its dynamism, begins to stagnate, and reproduction processes predominate. At the same time, reproduction itself is deformed - the number of bureaucracy and “non-labour elements” is growing, the figures of the shadow economy are turning into a latent structure factor, highly skilled workers and specialists often perform work below the level of their education and qualifications. These "scissors" on average throughout the country ranged from 10 to 50% for various social strata 420 .

A large-scale study of social mobility of the ISI of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1984-1988) was carried out in 12 republics and regions jointly with the department of social statistics of the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR and many regional centers. Comparison of data on the working career of people who entered the working life from the beginning of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1980s made it possible to see the trends in social mobility in a new light 421 . It turned out that a career in the 50s began at the age of 18, in the 70s - at the age of 20. Women, as a rule, started working later than men (which is explained by the birth and upbringing of children). The most attractive group for young people was the intelligentsia. A survey of people and an analysis of work books showed that 90% of all movements occur in the first decade of employment, 9% - in the second, 1% - in the third. The initial period accounts for up to 95% of the so-called return movements, when people return to the position they left. These data only confirmed what everyone knows at the level of common sense: young people are looking for themselves, trying different professions, leaving and returning.

Interesting data were obtained on the demographic composition of those on the move. In general, women turned out to be more mobile than men, and young people were more mobile than the elderly. But men were more likely to jump multiple steps in their careers than women, who moved gradually. From low-skilled workers to highly skilled and specialists, men moved several times more often than women, and women often moved from highly skilled workers to specialists.

The transition from peasants and workers to the intelligentsia is called vertical interclass mobility. She was especially active in the 1940s and 1950s. The place of the old intelligentsia was taken by people from among the workers and peasants. A new social group has formed - the "people's intelligentsia". The Bolshevik Party nominated for leading positions in industry, agriculture, government ordinary people, the so-called "red directors", "nominees". The upper class, if by such we mean the party nomenklatura, which amounted to no more than 1.5% of the total population, continued to be replenished at the expense of the lower classes even later. For example, as part of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (the upper layer of the ruling class) 1965-1984. people from the peasantry made up about 65%, from the workers - 17%, and from the intelligentsia - 18% 422 .

However, the infiltration of the lower classes into the upper class took place on a limited scale. On the whole, interclass mobility slowed down in the 1960s and 1980s, and mass transitions essentially ceased. A period of stabilization has begun.

When the workers, the peasantry and the intelligentsia are replenished mainly by people from their class, they talk about self-reproduction of the class, or reproducing it on its own basis. According to large-scale studies (covering the country, entire regions or cities) conducted in different years F.R. Filippov, M.Kh. Titmoy, L.A. Gordon, V.N. Shubkin, 2/3 of the intelligentsia were replenished by people from this group. This proportion is even higher among the workers and peasants. The children of workers and peasants more often pass into the category of intellectuals than the children of intellectuals become peasants and workers. This phenomenon is also called self-recruitment.

Intra-class mobility came to the fore, which accounted for up to 80% of all movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Intra-class mobility is sometimes called the transition from simple to complex work: the worker remains a worker, but his skills are constantly growing.

A study conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the basis of a territorial all-Russian sample of about 2,000 people made it possible to determine the main trajectories of group and individual mobility in Russian society in 1986-1993. 423 The data showed that the majority of Russian citizens retained their socio-professional status. Most of the managers remained in their places. The number of graduates decreased insignificantly. The share of the unemployed population has increased. In addition to those who became pensioners, the unemployed were also included in the number of unemployed. Some positions overlap: for example, a graduate can remain a graduate by moving into a group of entrepreneurs or the unemployed. Managers continued to replenish their ranks at the expense of graduates. Such a transition is traditional for the Soviet system.

In the “pre-perestroika” years, a particularly large number of educated and qualified people, as a rule, technical specialists, entered the management corps. Over the past eight years, the technical team has become increasingly self-perpetuating. Only students actively replenished its composition, although among them there are also immigrants from the workers. Here we must take into account the tradition of the Soviet system of education, which gives certain advantages to workers in the distribution of places in higher educational institutions, especially in evening and correspondence departments.

In the USSR, the share of workers in the employed population was constantly increasing. However, under conditions of modernization, the number of jobs requiring manual labor, and with it the proportion of unskilled strata of the working class, are usually reduced. The data show that the proportion of workers in modern Russia is declining, but at an extremely low rate. One of the most immobile groups, as before, remains the peasantry. As before, the transition of peasants to workers continues, although not so intensively. The social stratum of the unemployed is the most mobile 425 .

Most Full descriptionvertical mobility channels was given by P. Sorokin, who called them “vertical circulation channels”. According to Sorokin, since vertical mobility exists to some extent in any society, even in primitive ones, there are no impassable boundaries between strata. Between them there are various "holes", "plays", "membranes" through which individuals move up and down.

Sorokin attracted special attention social institutions - army, church, school, family, property that are used as channels of social circulation.

Army functions in this capacity not in peacetime, but in wartime. Large losses among the command staff lead to the filling of vacancies from the lower ranks. In times of war, soldiers advance through talent and bravery. Once promoted, they use the power they gain as a channel for further advancement and wealth accumulation. They have the opportunity to rob, loot, seize trophies, take indemnities, take away slaves, surround themselves with pompous ceremonies, titles, and transfer their power by inheritance.

Of the 92 Roman emperors, 36 are known to have achieved this, starting from the lowest ranks. Of the 65 Byzantine emperors, 12 advanced through military careers. Napoleon and his entourage, marshals, generals and the kings of Europe appointed by him, came from commoners. Cromwell, Grant, Washington and thousands of other commanders have risen to the highest positions thanks to the army.

In Soviet society, work in the police over the past decades has been one of the permanent channels of social mobility, in particular, moving from the countryside to the city, and this happened to a large extent due to the shortage of city dwellers willing to serve in the police. Those who had served were accepted into the Moscow police. In the army there are young people under the age of 35 who do not have a Moscow residence permit. There could be no other way to get to the capital, as soon as to get a job in the police, for example, among people from the Russian hinterland. Not only the army and the police, but also the power structures as a whole used to and now act as a powerful channel of vertical mobility, allowing people to ascend from the peripheral to the central segments of society.

Church as a channel of social circulation moved a large number of people from the bottom to the top of society. Gebbon, Archbishop of Reims, was a former slave. Pope Gregory VII - the son of a carpenter. P. Sorokin studied the biographies of 144 Roman Catholic popes and found that 28 of them came from the lower classes, and 27 from the middle strata. The institution of celibacy (celibacy), introduced in the 11th century. Pope Gregory VII ordered the Catholic clergy not to have children. Thanks to this, after the death of officials, the vacant positions were filled with new people.

The church was a channel not only for an upward, but also for a downward movement. Thousands of heretics, pagans, enemies of the church were brought to justice, ruined and destroyed. Among them were many kings, dukes, princes, lords, aristocrats and nobles of high ranks.

School. The institutions of upbringing and education, no matter what concrete form they take, have served in all ages as a powerful channel of social circulation. The USA and the USSR belong to societies where schools are available to all its members. In such a society, the "social elevator" moves from the very bottom, passes through all the floors and reaches the very top.

The USA and the USSR are the most striking examples of how one can achieve impressive success, become the great industrial powers of the world, adhering to opposite political and ideological values, but equally providing their citizens with equal opportunities to receive an education.

Britain represents the other pole, where the privileged schools are accessible only to the upper classes. The "social elevator" is short: it moves only along the upper floors of the social building.

An example of a "long elevator" is ancient China. During the era of Confucius, schools were open to all classes. Examinations were held every three years. The best students, regardless of the status of their families, were selected and transferred to higher schools, and then to universities, from where they got to high government posts. Under the influence of Confucius, the government of the mandarins was reputed to be the government of Chinese intellectuals exalted through the school "mechanism". The educational test fulfilled the role of universal suffrage.

Thus, the Chinese school constantly uplifted the common people and hindered the advancement of the upper classes if they did not meet the requirements. As a result, official duties were performed with dignity, and positions were filled based on personal talents.

Large competitions for colleges and universities in many countries are explained by the fact that education is the fastest and most accessible channel of vertical mobility.

Own most clearly manifested in the form of accumulated wealth and money. They are one of the simplest and effective ways social promotion. In the XV-XVIII centuries. European society began to rule money. Achieved a high position only those who had money, and not a noble origin. The last periods of the history of Ancient Greece and Rome were the same.

According to P. Sorokin, not all, but only some occupations and professions contribute to the accumulation of wealth. According to his calculations, this allows the employment of a manufacturer (29%), a banker and a stockbroker (21%), and a merchant (12%). Professions of artists, artists, inventors, statesmen, miners and some others do not provide such opportunities.

Family and marriage become channels of vertical circulation if representatives of different social strata join the union. In European society, the marriage of a poor, but titled partner with a rich, but not noble, was common. As a result, both moved up the social ladder, getting what they lacked. Examples of downward mobility can be found in ancient times. According to Roman law, a free woman who married a deputy for a slave became a slave herself and lost the status of a free citizen.

Even primitive societies were interested in being ruled by the most gifted. But how to discover innate talents if there are no special methods and techniques? The ancients found a very simple way. Through empirical observation, they found that smart parents are more likely to have smart children, and vice versa. The thesis about the inheritance of the qualities of parents was firmly established in the minds of our ancestors. It is he who underlies the prohibition of inter-caste marriages. The lower the social position, the fewer virtues parents have and their children inherit. And vice versa. So gradually arose institution of inheritance of social status parents by children: born in a family with a high social rank deserves a high rank as well.

The family has become the main mechanism of social selection, determination and inheritance of social status. The origin of a noble family does not automatically guarantee a good heredity and a decent education. Parents cared about the best possible upbringing of children; this became a mandatory norm for the aristocracy. In poor families, parents could not give proper education and upbringing. Every society needs guarantees. They could be given by noble families. Of these, the administrative elite was recruited. The family has become one of the institutions for the distribution of members of society by strata.

Ancient societies were deeply concerned about the stability of the family, because it was at the same time a school, a center for vocational training, and a production association, and much more. When the family began to lose its former halo of holiness, marriages began to break up easily, and divorces became an everyday event, society had to take on all these functions. Schools emerged outside the family, production outside the family, service outside the family.

Children remain in the family only while they are minors. In fact, they grow up outside the family. The meaning of purity of blood, inherited qualities has been lost. People are increasingly beginning to be judged not by their family origin, but by personal qualities.

The most important characteristic of Soviet society was tight control over the channels of vertical mobility. Channel capacity, which was wide in the period from the 20s to the 50s, began to narrow in the 60s and turned into a narrow passage in the “stagnant” period of the 70s and 80s (Figure 11.1).

Allowing some freedom of movement in the early stages of a career, the system of control became tighter the closer the promoter was to high-status positions. The Soviet-style mobility system was not built on the principles of competitive selection, as a result of the spontaneous laws of the market, it minimized the role of chance, elements, luck and initiative. Promotion was determined by the decision of higher authorities. In Soviet times, as in the time of Peter I, naturally, not everyone was allowed to govern the state, but only the chosen ones. But they were chosen not by titles of nobility and pedigree, but by political and ideological grounds. In order to occupy leading positions in the Soviet state, one had to be a member of the Communist Party, have an unblemished reputation, conduct active social work, and observe the principles of party morality.

Scheme 11.1. Channel capacity

vertical mobility - nomenclature career -

in Soviet society decreased over the years

To government positions under both Peter 1 and I.V. Stalin was appointed from above - for special services to the state. Gradually, a special job stratum was formed - nomenclature, those. the highest stratum of party functionaries.

Stalin's purges of party nomenklatura led to a shuffling of elite groups and provided a trigger for social mobility. Its inventor was, of course, not Stalin, but Ivan the Terrible, whose oprichnina was a very effective mechanism of this kind. If such a mechanism is launched periodically enough, it entails the release and, accordingly, the replacement of many vacancies.

But as soon as the repressions began to fade into the past and the Stalin era was replaced by the Khrushchev thaw, and then the Brezhnev stagnation, this immediately led to a sharp slowdown in upward mobility. In the course of their research (1993), L. B. Kosova and T. Clark made about two thousand interviews with figures in state administration, science and culture of the USSR who held nomenklatura positions, and with representatives of the new Russian elite 426 . An analysis of the data obtained showed that over the 30 years of post-Stalinism, the length of the path to a nomenklatura career, the only way to achieve a high status, has tripled.

By the mid-1970s, vertical mobility finally took on the character of slow progress along a strictly adjusted career ladder. There was only one path to the top, which could only be reached through the position of a middle manager: deputy director, chief engineer, head of a subdivision of a large enterprise, an employee of a party or public organization in a low position 427 . At the same time, the rate of rise gradually slowed down, society became more and more closed.

As for careers, 90% of the respondents in the elite groups began their careers from very modest positions: 41% - specialists who did not have subordinates, 12 - technical workers, 31 - workers, 4 - employees in the service sector, 2% - agricultural workers. economy. On average, the way up - to the first nomenklatura or equivalent position - took about 17 years, but for different elite groups this figure was not the same. So, the fastest career was made by representatives of the party elite, workers of mass organizations. They received their first nomenklatura position after an average of 12-13 years. The slowest careers are among representatives of the scientific, cultural and old economic elite - 19-20 years old. In different historical periods, the rates of vertical mobility differed quite strongly: before 1953 they reached 8 years, in 1954-1961. - 9, in 1962-1968-11, in 1969-1973 - 14, in 1974-1984 - 18, in 1985-1988 - 23, in 1989-1991 - 22 years.

Practically no one occupied an elite position directly from the starting position - there was a certain “dressing room” (or checkpoint) through which one had to pass in order to be admitted to high-status positions. This is the position of a middle manager, deputy director, chief engineer, and an employee of the party organization. The chances of getting into the elite immediately from the workers were practically zero. Growth occurred through higher education, joining the party, promotion 428 .

The erection of social barriers and partitions, the restriction of access to another group or the closure of the group in itself is called social clause(social closure). This term refers to both the process and the result of the process. This phenomenon was described by M. Weber 429 .

Under the social clause, or the social closure of the group, M. Weber understood the restriction of access to their ranks by a privileged group and thereby increasing their life chances. The closing mechanism becomes the transformation into a standard, and then into a selection criterion for those rare qualities (for example, talent, competence, nobility, worthy origin) that members of this group possess and that others do not possess. A status group professing such principles may eventually degenerate into a clique. Weber pointed out that any trait, even invented, can be used as a selection criterion, a basis for identifying oneself with a group or sifting outsiders from one's ranks.

Closed groups are the lot of all stratified societies based not only on income inequality, but also on inequality of access to privileged groups. Merchants and artisans, who at first were open groups, eventually became just as closed and replenished only through inheritance, like slave owners or feudal lords.

In the event that the transition between groups - from artisans to merchants, from hired workers to employers - does not encounter legal obstacles, the urban population, including these groups, should be considered a single stratum. But in the case when there were any obstacles in such a transition (say, the legal boundaries of the groups were clearly fixed, and the transition was formalized by special documents or special permission from the authorities), these groups should be considered different estates.

Social closure, or closure, is the actions of a status group aimed at protecting and guaranteeing certain resources and benefits at the expense of other groups. Where there are many closed groups, where there is a process of restricting access to the status group, there the number of strata and substrate grows. An example is the caste system, which has thousands of closed strata and substrata.

The most striking form of social closure is the inheritance of property and the principle of pedigree. They were widely used in traditional societies, primarily by the ruling groups. As we move from traditional to modern society, the criteria for closure change. The place of noble birth is occupied by competitive examinations, access to which is open to everyone. Even today, however, the educational system, according to Weber, retains the function of a selective tool, with the help of which newcomers are selected and controlled entry into high-prestige groups. A diploma of education is now no less effective than before racial or religious affiliation, family origin. Representatives of the free professions restrict access to their ranks not only by a certificate or license issued by the state, but also by the need to gain recognition in their circle, personal acquaintances in it, recommendations from its members, etc.

As a striking example of a status group, Weber cites bureaucracy which, like any other group, fights for the preservation of intra-group values, goals and interests, shows solidarity with its own kind, etc. Unlike a party, it does not fight for power and the establishment of its dominance in a revolutionary or legitimate way, based on elections. The bureaucracy is located throughout the administrative pyramid and invisibly controls the distribution of resources. She has the power necessary to preserve her life by virtue of her official position. The specific ethnicity of the bureaucracy lies in the cultivation of secrecy and professional excellence. It is not an executive committee of another class, but rather an organized 430 status group. In a technical sense, the bureaucracy is not a class and cannot participate on an equal footing with it in the struggle for power. The bureaucracy is the most powerful and influential of all status groups. It controls the careers of others, the distribution of society's resources, without possessing the privileges of the owner and the advantages of market monopolists.

The social organism gradually becomes more immobile and closed to movement. Senior positions, which at an early stage were elective, at later stages become hereditary. This trend can be traced back in history. In ancient Egypt, only in the later stages did a strict custom of succession to official posts appear. In Sparta, in the earliest stages, foreigners were allowed to the rank of full-blooded citizens, later this became an exception. In 451 BC. e. Pericles introduced a law according to which the privilege of free citizenship was granted only to those whose both parents were natives of Attica and free (full) citizens.

In Venice in 1296 the layer of the aristocracy was open, and since 1775, having lost its former importance, it becomes closed. In the Roman Empire, before its collapse, all social strata and groups became closed. A place among the court nobility in early feudal Europe was available to any nobleman, but later this layer becomes impenetrable for new people. The tendency towards caste isolation began to appear among the bourgeoisie in England after the 15th century, and in France after the 12th century.

Modern Western societies are characterized by sociologists as both open and closed social structures. For example, B. Schaefer, who compared the scale of social mobility in Germany in the 1930s and 1970s, noted, along with the fact of high vertical mobility, also an amazing invariance, similarity of the social structure of society in different historical epochs 431 . In the US and Japan, only 7-10% of workers rise to the upper class. The children of businessmen, politicians, lawyers have 5-8 times more opportunities to follow in the footsteps of their fathers than would happen if society were completely open. The higher the social class, the more difficult it is to penetrate it. The rich send their children to privileged schools and universities that are expensive but provide excellent education. A good education is a necessary condition in order to have a prestigious profession and get the position of a diplomat, minister, banker, professor. It is the upper class that makes laws that are beneficial to itself and disadvantageous to others. According to L. Duberman's research, for a whole century the American class structure remained relatively unchanged 432 . Empirical Research The process of class formation in England also testifies to the immobility of the hierarchical structure and its closeness 433 .

The social mobility of the population, calculated within the life of one or two generations, confirms the rigid invariance of the social structure in France, where there is a predominance of the inheritance of professions from generation to generation. In France, in the period 1945 to 1975, at each level of the social structure, there was a tendency towards invariance rather than change: the upper and lower layers of the hierarchy remained isolated 434 . These conclusions are confirmed by studies of the social biographies of D. Berto, who showed that only a small part of employees improve their social status, and 41% of the children of employees become workers 435 .

Thus, the tendency towards social closeness is inherent in all societies. It characterizes the stabilization of social life, the transition from an early to a mature stage of development, as well as an increase in the role of attributed status and a decrease in the role of achieved.

In a young, rapidly developing society, vertical mobility is very intense. Russia of the era of Peter I, Soviet Russia in the 20-30s, Russia of the era of perestroika (90s of the XX century) are examples of such a society. Those who come from the middle and even the lower classes, through fortunate circumstances, ability or resourcefulness, quickly move up. There are many vacancies here. But when all the places are filled, the upward movement slows down. The new upper class is fenced off from the penetration of belated seekers by many social barriers. The social group is closed.

According to Western sociologists, only during the period of industrialization in the USSR was there an open society, which is explained by an acute shortage of managerial personnel. Then in the USSR all people, of course, with the exception of class enemies, had an equal starting position and equal chances for social ascent. A system of mass training of specialists was created in the country. Later, the needs for personnel were satisfied - even with some margin: people with higher education began to take jobs. Thus, there appeared intellectual workers. Soviet social scientists considered this to be yet another achievement of socialism. But in the “stagnant” period, i.e. in the 70s and 80s, begins self-recruitment social strata. Society has stabilized and upward mobility has declined. Social strata began to reproduce mainly at their own expense: the children of workers became workers, the children of employees - employees. Sociological studies of this period revealed a clear trend towards higher education among children whose parents also had a high level of education. This trend was significantly lower in other populations 436 . The results of sociological research in the 1970s and 1980s testify to the high degree of closeness even of the working class. Since 1986, it has been replenished mainly by graduates of vocational schools, technical universities and other similar educational institutions 437 . The same structure of reproduction was also characteristic of the group of workers in the service sector. The stagnation and stagnation that engulfed society forced the country's leadership to begin perestroika, which turned into capitalization.

In stable capitalist societies (USA, England, France, Germany, etc.), the upper class has long since become hereditary. The accumulation of wealth began within kindred clans, created by mutual marriages, several centuries ago. In the United States, the upper class has maintained continuity through time since the 18th century. and goes back to the settlers from Northern Ireland. The socialization of children in boarding schools and then practice in parenting fields, corporations and companies isolates the upper class from the rest of society.

What groups of the population made up the new upper class in Russia? The main backbone is represented by those who belonged to it during the Soviet era, namely the nomenklatura (70%); those businessmen who were engaged in underground business under the Soviet regime and in the new conditions were able to legalize their fortune, i.e. criminal elements (15%); clever people, representatives of different groups - from an employee of a research institute to a university teacher, who turned out to be useful either to the nomenklatura or to criminals (15%). In general, the upper class was completed by 1994, all public property was basically divided among powerful groups and clans.

A specific feature of the new upper class in Russia was its very rapid folding and the same rapid - in a much shorter time than in Western countries - its closure.

The social closure of the upper class in Russia began to be observed already in 1994. Before that, i.e. in the period from 1989 to 1993, the opportunities to move up for all Russians were at least formally open, although unequal.

It is known that the capacity of the upper class is objectively limited and amounts to no more than 3-5% of the population. In 1989 - 1992 large capitals "knocked together" easily. Today, access to the elite requires capital and capabilities that most people do not have.

At the same time, access to the rural and urban middle class is open. The stratum of farmers is extremely small and does not exceed 1%. The middle urban strata have not yet formed. But their replenishment depends on how soon the new Russians and the country's leadership will pay for skilled mental labor not at the subsistence level, but at its market price.

In modern Russian society, the upper class has a second feature - demonstrative luxury, but not the first - heredity. But it also begins to actively form due to the closure of the highest stratum.

According to M. F. Chernysh, the process of modernization of modern Russian society is not accompanied by an increase in social mobility. The "closedness" of the main social groups continues to grow, regardless of the reforms in the economy. In other words, no matter how serious the current changes are, they have not affected the foundations of the social structure of Russian society 438 .

The modernization of Russian society comes down primarily to the redistribution of material and social resources. The current attempt at modernization is similar to what happened in Russia after October 1917. At that time, the “locomotive” of the transition to “modernity” was considered a radical restructuring of social relations. One gets the impression that the current reformers believe that the main task is to create an entrepreneurial class at any cost that will take control of the country's economic resources and lead it out of the crisis. But the experience of other countries shows that the entrepreneurial class that emerged outside

production activities, is not able to fulfill this role 439 .

Russia has experienced at least two major waves of marginalization. The first came after the revolution of 1917. Two classes were forcibly knocked out of the social structure - the nobility and the bourgeoisie, which were part of the elite of society. The new proletarian elite began to form from the lower classes. "Red directors" and ministers suddenly became workers and peasants. Bypassing the usual trajectory of social ascent for a stable society - through the middle class - they jumped one step and got to where they could not get before and would not get in the future (diagram 11.2).

Scheme 11.2. The first wave of marginalization. After the 1917 revolution in

the social structure of Russian society there have been serious

transformations. The nobility and the bourgeoisie, who constituted the highest

class (elite). The vacant seat was taken by representatives of the lower

classes, which immediately found themselves in a marginal situation.

In essence, the representatives of the Soviet elite turned out to be what can be called rising marginals. They broke away from one class, but did not become full-fledged, as is required in a civilized society, representatives of a new, higher class. They retained the old manners of behavior, values, language, cultural customs characteristic of the lower classes of society, although they sincerely tried to join the artistic values ​​of high culture, learned to read and write, went on religious trips, visited theaters and propaganda studios.

This bottom-up path continued until the early 1970s, when Russian sociologists for the first time established that all classes and strata of Soviet society were now reproducing on their own basis, i.e. only at the expense of members of their class. This lasted only two decades, which can be considered a period of stabilization of Soviet society and the absence of mass marginalization.

The second wave came in the early 1990s and also as a result of qualitative changes in the social structure of Russian society (Scheme 11.3).

The return movement of society from socialism to capitalism led to radical changes in the social structure. The elite of society was formed from three replenishment: criminals, nomenklatura and raznochintsy. A certain part of the elite was replenished from representatives of the lower class - shaven-headed servants of Russian mafiosi, numerous racketeers and organized criminals - often were former pets and half-educated. The era of primitive accumulation - the early phase of capitalism - brought unrest to life in all strata of society. The path to enrichment during this period, as a rule, lies outside the legal space. Among the first, those who did not have a high education, high morality, but who fully personified "wild capitalism" began to enrich themselves.

The elite included, in addition to representatives of the lower classes, raznochintsy, i.e. people from different groups of the middle Soviet class and intelligentsia, as well as the nomenklatura, which at the right time was in the right place, namely at the levers of power when it was necessary to divide public property. On the contrary, the predominant part of the middle class made downward mobility and joined the ranks of the poor. Unlike the old poor (declassed elements: chronic alcoholics, beggars, homeless people, drug addicts, prostitutes) that exist in any society, this part is called the “new poor”. They are a specific feature of Russia. There is no such category of the poor either in Brazil, or in the United States, or in any country in the world. The first distinguishing feature is a high level of education. Teachers, lecturers, engineers, doctors and other categories of state employees were among the poor only on the basis of an economic criterion - income. But they are not friends with more important criteria related to education, culture and standard of living. Unlike the old chronic poor, the “new poor” is a temporary category. When the economic situation in the country changes in better side they are ready to return to

Scheme 11.3. The second wave of marginalization. As a result of the transition

Russian society in the 90s from socialism to capitalism in

social structure has undergone major transformations. Part

new Russians (elite) included representatives from the lower strata. Average

class polarized, splitting into two streams: part (nomenclature and

raznochintsy) joined the elite, and the other part (“new poor”)

joined the ranks of the poor.

middle class. And they are trying to give their children a higher education, to instill the values ​​of the elite of society, and not the “social bottom”.

Thus, the radical changes in the social structure of Russian society in the 1990s were associated with the polarization of the middle class, its stratification into two poles, which filled the upper and lower classes of society. As a result, the number of this class has been significantly reduced.

Having fallen into the stratum of the “new poor”, the Russian intelligentsia found itself in a marginal situation: it did not want to and could not give up old cultural values ​​and habits, but did not want to accept new ones. Thus, in terms of their economic position, these strata belong to the lower class, and in terms of lifestyle and culture, to the middle class. In the same way, representatives of the lower class who joined the ranks of the “new Russians” found themselves in a marginal situation. They are characterized by the old model of "rags to riches": the inability to behave decently and speak, communicate as required by the new economic status. On the contrary, the top-down model that characterizes the movement of state employees could be called “from riches to the dirt”.

Some experts believe that marginality is a one-generation phenomenon, a temporary phantom. Those who come from the countryside to the cities are marginal, but their children only partially inherit some elements of the marginal subculture by inertia. And already in the second or third generations, this problem disappears, and, thus, marginality is overcome 440 .

R. Dahrendorf believed that the higher the standard of living of the population, the more the population tends to assimilate the bourgeois values ​​of Western civilization and, to a lesser extent, the values ​​of socialism. The process of bourgeoisization is inherent in a society emerging from the socialist phase of development, and is associated with the gradual acquisition of individualistic values ​​and proprietary orientations.

To demographic factors include: the birth rate and death rate of the population, its migration, marriage, divorce, fragmentation and enlargement of families. Demographic processes transfer the structure of the population to a new state: other proportions are formed between different categories of the population, their distribution across the territory, their degree of homogeneity, and typical average parameters change.

The influence of demographic factors in statistics is determined on the basis of the calculation in which the total increase (GG) of the population (of the entire population or its individual categories) is divided into natural (GG) and migration (GG). Indicators can be presented in absolute terms and per 1,000 people. In table. 11.2 shows the results of such calculations for Russia in dynamics (ATP - administrative-territorial transformation).

Table data. 11.2 indicate a stable long-term trend of the rural population moving to the cities, this is indicated by the negative balance of rural population migration. In addition, there was a migration outflow to other republics. The most dramatic changes in indicators occurred by 1993. In the 1990s, new trends arose due to changes in the socio-economic and political situation in the country. They are caused primarily by significant migration flows from the former Soviet republics to Russia. All previous proportions have shifted: the ratio of natural and migration growth, the ratio of indicators for the urban and rural population. The economic crisis, which affected various regions with varying intensity, the aggravation of interethnic relations and the emergence of hotbeds of hostilities, dramatically changed the demographic situation in the country and in individual territories, which led to shifts in the composition of the population 441 .

Table 11.2

Components of the dynamics of the resident population of the Russian Federation (per 1000 average annual population)

years	All population			Urban population				Rural population

Sources: Population of Russia. Annual demographic report. M.: Eurasia, 1993. S. 73; Demographic Yearbook of the Russian Federation. 1993. M.: Goskomstat of Russia. 1993: pp. 10-12.

Vertical and horizontal mobility are influenced by gender, age, birth rate, death rate, population density. In general, young people and men are more mobile than older people and women. Overpopulated countries are more likely to experience the effects of emigration than immigration. Where the birth rate is high, the population is younger and therefore more mobile, and vice versa.

Professional mobility is characteristic of young people, economic mobility for adults, and political mobility for the elderly. The birth rate is unevenly distributed across classes. The lower classes tend to have more children, while the upper classes tend to have fewer. There is a pattern: the higher a person climbs the social ladder, the fewer children he has.

Even if every son of a rich man follows in the footsteps of his father, voids are still formed on the upper steps of the social pyramid, which are filled by people from the lower classes. In no class do people plan for the exact number of children needed to replace parents. The number of vacancies and the number of applicants for the occupation of certain social positions in different classes is different.

Professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) and skilled employees do not have enough children to fill their jobs in the next generation. By contrast, farmers and farm workers in, say, the US have 50% more children than they need to be self-sustaining. It is not difficult to calculate in which direction social mobility should proceed in modern society.

High and low birth rates in different classes have the same effect on vertical mobility as population density in different countries has on horizontal mobility. Strata, like countries, can be overpopulated or underpopulated.

Migration is a kind of horizontal mobility.Population migration- is the movement of people associated, as a rule, with a change of residence (resettlement of people from country to country, from district to district, from city to village and vice versa, from city to city, from village to village). It is subdivided into irrevocable (with a final change of permanent place of residence), temporary (resettlement for a sufficiently long, but limited period), seasonal (movement during certain periods of the year), depending on the time of year (tourism, treatment, study, agricultural work), pendulum - regular movement of a given point and return to it (Table 11.3).

Table 11.3

Some projections of annual net migration

to Russia (medium option; thousand people)

	year once- work	Forecast year
Goskomstat RF
Economic Conjuncture Center under the Government of the Russian Federation
Center for Economic Conjuncture *
Center for Human Demography and Ecology Institute of National Economic RN forecasting (TSCECH)

*Single-variant evaluation.

Source: Iontsev V.A. International population migration: Russia and the modern world // Sociological research. 1998. No. 6. S. 46.

Migration is a very broad concept that covers all types of migration processes, i.e. population movements both within one country and between countries - around the world (international migration). Migration can be external (outside the country) and internal. The external includes emigration, immigration, and the internal - the movement from the village to the city, inter-district resettlement, etc.

Migration does not always take massive forms. In calm times, it affects small groups or individuals. Their movement occurs, as a rule, spontaneously. Demographers identify two main flows of migration within one country: city-rural and city-city. It has been established that as long as industrialization is going on in the country, people move mainly from the village to the city. After its completion, and this is typical for the United States and Western Europe, people move from the city to suburban areas and rural areas.

An interesting pattern is revealed: migrant flows are directed to those places where social mobility is highest. And one more thing: those who move from city to city arrange their lives easier and achieve greater success than those who move from village to city and vice versa.

Sociologists distinguish several historical varieties of migration, which are distinguished by special sociological characteristics 442 .

The first and oldest form of movement of entire peoples are considered conquest campaigns. They played a huge role in the history of mankind, its settlement throughout the globe, in the formation of races and ethnic groups. The largest of them were the resettlement of Semitic peoples in Mesopotamia (3rd millennium BC), the resettlement of Aryan tribes from the steppes of the South. Siberia (approximately 4th millennium BC), the resettlement of the Celts in Europe (1st millennium BC), etc. Further, we can note the sea migrations of the Normans (VIII-XI centuries), and the Magyars, the wide migration of the Arabs (VII-VIII centuries), and later the Mongols (XIII century). According to the passionary theory of L. N. Gumilyov, the impulse to each such resettlement was given by a “passionary” impetus (of biological and cosmic origin). These powerful processes were accompanied by active assimilation and led to the emergence of new ethnic groups, the birth and death of empires.

Of particular importance was the Great Migration of Peoples in the 4th-7th centuries. n. that crushed the Roman Empire. It was undoubtedly the largest migration process. It is both an ethnic and an economic process.

Great Migration- the name of the era of mass migrations of the Hunnic, Germanic, Slavic and other tribes in the 4th-7th centuries. They are also called barbarian tribes who lived during the period of decomposition of the primitive communal system on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. It is difficult to determine the number of peoples who participated in the migrations due to the lack of sources. According to some sources, there were about 15 thousand Visigoths; vandals - from 200 to 400 thousand; Slavs - up to 100 thousand people. The result of the great migration was the death of the slave-owning Roman Empire, the formation of early feudal (barbarian) states and nationalities, the ancestors of modern European peoples.

The second type of horizontal mobility is urbanization - regular movement of the population from villages to cities and (more rarely) in the opposite direction. The intensity of these movements depends on the specific conditions of the country and era. If at the beginning of the XIX century. about 30 million people (3%) of the population lived in the cities of the world, then by the beginning of the 20th century. - 224 million (13.6%), and by the end of it - more than 2 billion (over 40%). In Russia, the urban population is more than 66% 443 .

The third type of migration is colonization. Colonization- development of empty and sparsely populated territories. The first great colonization is considered ancient Greek, the second - Roman, the third - European, the beginning of which was laid by the great geographical discoveries of the XV-XVII centuries. and the result of which was the emergence of gigantic colonial empires. Colonization has always been one of the ways to resolve internal conflicts in metropolitan countries through the migration of “extra” or dissatisfied with their position population. This migration could be forced (when criminal or political criminals were expelled) or voluntary. People left countries to escape chronic social disasters and hope to start a new life in a new place. They were mostly able-bodied and energetic people, and their massive outflow had catastrophic consequences for some European countries. Back in the 17th century. Sancho de Moncada published the book “The poverty of Spain is the result of the discovery of America”, in which he argued that the decline of the country, despite the influx of American gold and silver (Spain monopolized 83% of the world's production of precious metals), is associated with the outflow of a significant part of the Spanish population overseas. Spain itself turned out to be overflowing with lazy vagabonds, thieves, beggars and beggar monks.

By the beginning of the XX century. Italy ranked first in terms of the number of emigrants (up to 700-800 thousand people left it annually). Ireland became the record holder for the number of emigrants - for the 2nd half of the 19th century. its population halved (from 1846 to 1891 about 5 million people left the country). Since the beginning of the XIX century. before 1914, about 50 million people left Europe, who emigrated mainly to the United States, Canada, Australia - states that were generally created by emigrants. From 1918 to 1961, another flow of immigrants from Europe (mainly to the USA) amounted to 16 million people 444 .

Emigration continues to this day. For example, in 1981, 233 thousand people left the UK (this is a kind of post-colonial emigration record). But at the same time, the reverse process is also observed: an influx of “colored” emigrants to England, and mainly from former British colonies. By 1981, their number reached 2 million people, i.e. accounted for 4% of the total population of the country. It is predicted that by the year 2000

the "colored" community in the UK was to be 6.7% of the population 445 . Similar processes take place in almost all major industrial countries of the world (excluding Japan). For example, about 1 million emigrants arrived in the USA in 1992.

The fourth type of migration processes is Exodus, flight or exile. They are caused by extraordinary circumstances - natural disasters, political upheavals, religious persecutions, wars and revolutions. Historical examples are the exile in the 17th century. from Spain 500 thousand Moriscos (the remnants of the Arab population), the exodus of Huguenots from France and Puritans from England in the 17th-18th centuries, the resettlement of 7 million Muslims from India to Pakistan in 1947.

As a result of the forced or voluntary exodus of large groups of the population from their historical homeland, ethnic enclaves - diasporas - are formed in the new territory. Diaspora(from the Greek. Diaspora - dispersion) is a part of an ethnic group living in a new place of settlement, in different countries. This is a kind of socio-ethnic community that arose as a result of complex migration processes, sometimes over centuries. Initially, this term referred to Jews who settled outside Palestine since the time of the Babylonian captivity (6th century BC). Later, this concept spread to other ethnic and religious groups living outside their historical homeland. Now there are new diasporas, for example, in the USA - Chinese, Irish, Armenian, Polish, Italian, Greek, Russian, etc.

In Russia, over the past century and a half, there have been several waves of emigration associated with political and religious persecution (Russia at different times was left by populist revolutionaries, and social democrats, and dissatisfied liberals, and socialist-revolutionaries, and anarchists, and “Old Believers”, and sectarians ) 446 . The most massive was the flow of emigrants that poured out of Russia after the October Revolution and during the civil war. A huge world-wide Russian diaspora was formed, numbering more than 2 million people 447 . In fact, a whole country arose - “foreign Russia”, very peculiar in its structure and way of life.

In Russia, he was one of the first to study transhistorical migration movements Andrey Alekseevich Isaev(1851-1924) - an outstanding Russian economist, statistician and sociologist. Comparing different countries, summarizing the huge historical material, he discovered four main reasons that prompted people to move:

1) religious - persecution by the dominant church. An example is the Old Believers (schismatics), who fled in thousands to the remote northern regions of Russia, and the religious sect of the Mennonites left the country altogether so as not to serve their military service.

2) Political - discontent public order at home prompted the founding of Greek colonies along the shores of Asia Minor, on the islands of the Aegean Sea and in Italy. The troubles that took place in England at the beginning of the 17th century contributed to the colonization of New England.

3) Criminal - the founding of colonies often took place through the resettlement of criminals. Australia, where England deported its criminals, and Siberia, a place of exile for convicts in pre-revolutionary Russia, can serve as examples.

4) Economic - need and greed drive hundreds of thousands of people out of their homeland: capitalists are attracted to distant countries by the dream of getting ultra-high interest rates (in a new business, as you know, they are always higher than in an old mastered business), and the unemployed are attracted by the hope of finding work. So the capitalists are exporting huge amounts of money, while ordinary people are exporting their working hands, the ability to work.

Thus, the migration movements of different historical epochs and different countries, be it ancient Greece, modern Germany or England at the beginning of the 17th century, are explained by the same reasons.

According to A.A. Isaev, individual people migrate in a completely different way than entire nations. Individuals part with their habitable place voluntarily, hoping to find in another city or country a more interesting job, a more satisfying life, better living conditions. And the peoples are driven by need, i.e. some kind of objective law, say, exhausted soil or countless hordes of enemies that appeared from outside. This is not voluntary, but involuntary resettlement. This was the Great Migration of Peoples in the IV-V centuries. n. e. in Europe.

Two types of migration occupy an important place - immigration and emigration. Emigration- travel outside the country for permanent residence or short-term residence. Immigration– entry into the country for permanent residence or long-term residence. Thus, immigrants are moving in, and emigrants are moving out (voluntarily or involuntarily). Emigration reduces the population. If the most capable and qualified people leave, then not only the number, but also the qualitative composition of the population decreases. Immigration increases the population. The arrival of a highly skilled labor force in the country increases the qualitative composition of the population, while the arrival of a low-skilled labor force has the opposite effect.

Thanks to emigration and migration, new cities, countries and states arose. It is known that in cities the birth rate is low and constantly decreasing. Consequently, all large cities, especially millionaire cities, have come into being through immigration. After the discovery of America by Columbus, thousands and millions of immigrants moved here from Europe. North America, Latin America and Australia arose thanks to large migration processes. Siberia was mastered by migration.

In total in the XVIII century. two powerful streams of migration emanated from Europe - to America and to Russia. In Russia, the Volga region was especially actively populated. In 1762, the famous decree of Catherine II was published on the invitation of foreigners to civil service and settlement. Mostly Germans from Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Germany responded. The first flow of migrants were artisans, the second - peasants. They formed agricultural colonies in the steppe zone of Russia.

Emigration is the larger, the less the population has the opportunity to satisfy their needs in their country, including through internal resettlement. The proportions between internal and external migration are determined by the economic situation, the general social background, and the degree of tension in society. Emigration occurs where living conditions worsen and opportunities for upward mobility narrow. The peasants left for Siberia and the Don, where the Cossacks had developed, because of the tightening of serfdom. It was not aristocrats who left Europe, but social outsiders.

Horizontal mobility in such cases acts as a means to solve the problems that arise in the field of vertical mobility. The fugitive serfs who founded the Don merchant class became free and prosperous; raised their political and economic status at the same time. At the same time, their professional status could remain unchanged: the peasants continued to engage in arable farming on the new lands.

It is countries with pronounced immigration that determine the current migration situation in the world. These are, first of all, the USA, Canada, Australia, the countries of Western and Northern Europe, the Arabian monarchies in the Middle East, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil in South America, South Africa, Zaire and Ivory Coast in Africa, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong in Asia.

Taking into account the phenomenon of the so-called near abroad, Russia can also be attributed to countries of immigration, although, if we focus on the far abroad, it would be more correct to speak of it as a country of emigration. It is no coincidence that according to the classification compiled in 1994 by the ILO, IOM and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Russia, along with a small number of other states, is characterized simultaneously as a country of emigration and immigration 449 .

Researchers identify four waves of Russian emigration:

”noble post-revolutionary;

Mixed post-war;

"Jewish-dissident" of stagnant times;

Post-Soviet "economic".

In each of these waves there was a great intellectual component, and each wave, to a certain extent, can be called a “brain drain”. In the first wave, i.e. After the October Revolution, 1.5-2 million people emigrated from Russia. Many settled in France. Representatives of other waves also emigrated here. However, according to the last census in France, only 5 thousand people called themselves Russians.

“Economic” emigration is achievable primarily for high-class specialists, skilled workers. "Brain drain" is typical for the European part of Russia, Siberia and the Far East. The population of these regions is better prepared to adapt to the conditions of the Western economy and the Western way of life, and has higher territorial and professional mobility.

Such emigration has the typical features of a “brain drain” from a poor country, which nonetheless has a relatively high cultural, scientific and technical potential. This process began in 1989, when 70,000 scientists left the country. In 1990, every sixth Soviet emigrant was a scientist, engineer or doctor. In 1990 alone, 534 people left the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for long periods abroad.

At the end of the XX century. there was a significant and constant increase in the scale of migration, involvement in the global migration cycle of almost all countries of the world, in other words, the globalization of international migration. At the beginning of 1996, there were more than 125 million migrants in the world, who essentially formed a kind of “nation of migrants” 450 .

UN experts distinguish five categories of migrants:

1) foreigners admitted to the country of entry for education and training;

2) migrants entering for work;

3) migrants entering through the reunification of families, the creation of new families;

4) migrants entering a permanent settlement;

5) foreigners admitted to the country of entry for humanitarian reasons (refugees, asylum seekers, etc.) 451 .

Russia's participation in world migration flows became massive in the late 1980s and 1990s. Thus, short-term gross migration has almost tripled since 1988, while private migration (i.e., at the invitation of relatives, acquaintances, legal entities etc.) - more than 15 times 452 . The collapse of the USSR had a major impact on the change in the migration pattern in Russian society.

About 25 million Russians suddenly turned up outside the borders of the Russian Federation, i.e. 17.4% of the total number within the former USSR. The main part (almost 70%) is concentrated in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The proportion of the Russian population in Latvia, Estonia, and Kyrgyzstan is very high. The Russians, who previously lived in the Baltics, Ukraine, and Central Asia, turned into foreigners and were forced to either take non-Russian citizenship, or turn into refugees and move to the Russian Federation. By the time of the collapse of the USSR, in 10 of the 15 former Soviet republics, representatives of non-indigenous nationalities made up more than 1/4 of the population, and in two republics - Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - even more than half of the population. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 6 million Ukrainians, more than 2 million Belarusians, etc. also found themselves outside their national states.

With the advent of the near abroad, a unique situation arose when, within the framework of the former USSR, internal migration immediately turned into external migration. At the same time, Russia practically remains the only one of the former Soviet republics that has neither directly nor indirectly (through laws on citizenship, land, language, etc.) closed its borders to all former Soviet citizens who wish to enter it, no matter what nationality they were not.

The USSR had a population of almost 300 million people, consisting of 130 ethnic groups, with one in five of its citizens living outside their national region.

According to the International Organization for Migration (MOM), from 1990 to 1996, the population of Russia increased by 3.3 million people due to migration (for comparison: in the period 1976-1990 - by 2.4 million people). According to sociological forecasts, if the economic situation in Russia improves, the number of migrants could reach 1.2-1.5 million people a year. The main flow of migrants from the former Soviet republics are Russians. In terms of the number of migrants in 1996, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan were in the lead. More than 10% of the Russian-speaking population has left the Baltic countries in recent years, and 17% have left the republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. From 1990 to 1996 almost 2,362,000 Russians moved to Russia 453 .

After the October Revolution, about 2 million people emigrated. Until the mid-1980s, an average of up to 3,000 people went abroad for permanent residence annually. In 1988, the emigration of Jews, Germans and Greeks, as well as visiting people, was practically allowed. If in 1987 9.7 thousand emigrants left Russia, then over the next three years their number increased by more than 10 times and reached a maximum value in 1990 - 103.6 thousand. 454 Subsequently, the volume of emigration did not increase.

A distinctive feature of Russia's migration exchange is its one-sidedness: more people leave Russia than come to it. Thus, in 1992, 34 times more people left for non-CIS countries for permanent residence than 455 entered. But in 1993-1998. the situation has changed. More came to Russia than left. Millions of Russian settlers poured into the country from the former Soviet republics. They were called refugees.

Since 1992, population migration from neighboring countries has become not only one of the main components of the overall growth of Russia's population. In essence, it plays the most important role in smoothing out the demographic crisis caused by natural decline, which amounted to 1992–1997 in 1992-1997. more than 4.1 million people. Emigration outflow to far-abroad countries over the same years reached 623 thousand people. Thus, the overall decline in the population of Russia, which amounted to 1992-1997. about 4.2 million people, was more than half compensated by net migration from neighboring countries (3310 thousand) 456 (Table 11.4).

Table 11.4

Components of population change in Russia

With 1951 on 1996 G.

periods, years	Insect population end period, year (thousand people)	Average annual high rates growth(%)	General gain (loss) (thousand people)	Including (thousand people)
				natural	migratory

PLAN

Introduction

1. The essence of social mobility

2. Forms of social mobility and its consequences

3. Problems of social mobility in Russia in 20-21 centuries.

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

An important place in the study of social structure is occupied by questions social mobility population, that is, the transition of a person from one class to another, from one intraclass group to another, social movements between generations. Social movements are massive and become more intense as society develops. Sociologists study the nature of social movements, their direction, intensity; movement between classes, generations, cities and regions. They can be positive and negative, encouraged or, conversely, restrained.

In the sociology of social movements, the main stages of a professional career are studied, the social position of parents and children is compared. In our country, for decades, social origin was put in the forefront in characterization, biography, and people with worker-peasant roots received an advantage. For example, young people from intelligent families, in order to enter a university, initially went to work for a year or two, get seniority, change their social status. Thus, having received a new social status of a worker, they were, as it were, cleansed of their "flawed" social origin. In addition, applicants with seniority received benefits upon admission, were enrolled in the most prestigious specialties with virtually no competition.

In Western sociology, the problem of social mobility is also very widely studied. Strictly speaking, social mobility is change social status. There is a status - real and imaginary, attributed. Any person receives a certain status already at birth, depending on belonging to a particular race, gender, place of birth, parental status.

In all public systems principles of both imaginary and real merit apply. The more imaginary merit prevails in determining social status, the tougher the society, the less social mobility (medieval Europe, castes in India). Such a situation can only be maintained in an extremely simple society, and then up to a certain level. Further, it simply hinders social development. The fact is that, according to all the laws of genetics, talented and gifted young people are found equally evenly in all social groups of the population.

The more developed a society, the more dynamic it is, the more the principles of real status and real merit work in its system. Society is interested in this.

1. The essence of social mobility

Talented individuals are undoubtedly born in all social strata and social classes. If there are no barriers to social achievement, more social mobility can be expected, with some individuals rapidly rising to high statuses while others sink to lower ones. But there are barriers between strata and classes that prevent the free transition of individuals from one status group to another. One of the biggest barriers arises from the fact that social classes have subcultures that prepare the children of each class to participate in the class subculture in which they are socialized. An ordinary child from a family of representatives of the creative intelligentsia is less likely to learn the habits and norms that help him later work as a peasant or worker. The same can be said about the norms that help him in his work as a major leader. Nevertheless, in the end, he can become not only a writer, like his parents, but also a worker or a major leader. Just for advancement from one layer to another or from one social class to another, "difference in starting opportunities" matters. For example, the sons of a minister and a peasant have different opportunities for obtaining high official statuses. Therefore, the generally accepted official point of view, which consists in the fact that in order to achieve any heights in society, you only need to work and have abilities, turns out to be untenable.

The above examples show that any social movement does not occur without hindrance, but by overcoming more or less significant barriers. Even moving a person from one place of residence to another involves a certain period of adaptation to new conditions.

All social movements of an individual or a social group are included in the process of mobility. According to the definition of P. Sorokin, "social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual, or a social object, or a value created or modified through activity, from one social position to another."

2. Forms of social mobility and its consequences

There are two main types of social mobility: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal social mobility, or displacement, refers to the transition of an individual or social object from a single social group to another located on the same level. The movement of an individual from a Baptist to a Methodist religious group, from one nationality to another, from one family (both husband and wife) to another in a divorce or remarriage, from one factory to another, while maintaining his professional status, are all examples of horizontal social mobility. They are also the movement of social objects (radio, car, fashion, ideas of communism, Darwin's theory) within one social layer, like moving from Iowa to California or from some place to any other. In all these cases, "movement" can occur without any noticeable change in the social position of the individual or social object in the vertical direction. Vertical social mobility refers to those relationships that arise when an individual or a social object moves from one social stratum to another. Depending on the direction of movement, there are two types of vertical mobility: ascending and descending, that is, social ascent and social descent. According to the nature of stratification, there are downward and upward flows of economic, political and occupational mobility, not to mention other less important types. Updrafts exist in two main forms: penetration an individual from a lower stratum to an existing higher stratum; or the creation by such individuals of a new group and the penetration of the whole group into a higher stratum to the level with the already existing groups of this stratum. Accordingly, the downward currents also have two forms: the first consists in the fall of the individual from a higher social position to a lower one, without destroying the original group to which he previously belonged; another form is manifested in the degradation of the social group as a whole, in the lowering of its rank against the background of other groups, or in the destruction of its social unity. In the first case, the fall reminds us of a person who fell from the ship, in the second - the immersion of the ship itself with all the passengers on board, or the crash of the ship when it shatters.

Cases of individual penetration into higher strata or falling from a high social level to a low one are familiar and understandable. They don't need an explanation. The second form of social ascent, descent, rise and fall of groups should be considered in more detail.

The following historical examples may serve as illustrations. Historians of the Indian caste society inform us that the Brahmin caste has always been in the position of undeniable superiority which it has held for the last two millennia. In the distant past, the castes of warriors, rulers and kshatriyas were not ranked lower than the brahmins, and, as it turns out, they became the highest caste only after a long struggle. If this hypothesis is correct, then the promotion of the rank of the Brahmin caste through all other floors is an example of the second type of social ascent. Prior to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine the Great, the status of a Christian bishop or Christian clergyman was low among other social ranks of the Roman Empire. In the next few centuries, the social position and rank of the Christian church as a whole rose. As a result of this elevation, the representatives of the clergy and, especially, the highest church dignitaries also rose to the highest strata of medieval society. Conversely, the decline in the authority of the Christian Church in the last two centuries has led to a relative decline in the social ranks of the higher clergy among other ranks of modern society. The prestige of a pope or a cardinal is still high, but it is undoubtedly lower than it was in the Middle Ages 3 . Another example is the legalist group in France. Appearing in the 12th century, this group quickly grew in social importance and position. Very soon, in the form of a judicial aristocracy, they took the position of the nobility. In the 17th and especially in the 18th century, the group as a whole began to "sink" and finally disappeared altogether in the conflagration of the Great French Revolution. The same thing happened in the process of the rise of the agrarian bourgeoisie in the Middle Ages, the privileged Sixth Corps, the merchant guilds, the aristocracy of many royal courts. To hold a high position in the court of the Romanovs, Habsburgs or Hohenzollerns before the revolution meant having the highest social rank. The "fall" of dynasties led to the "social decline" of the ranks associated with them. The Bolsheviks in Russia before the revolution did not have any particularly recognized high position. During the revolution, this group overcame a huge social distance and occupied the highest position in Russian society. As a result, all its members as a whole were elevated to the status previously held by the royal aristocracy. Similar phenomena are observed in the perspective of pure economic stratification. Thus, before the advent of the "oil" or "car" era, being a well-known industrialist in these areas did not mean being an industrial and financial magnate. The wide distribution of industries has made them the most important industrial areas. Accordingly, to be a leading industrialist - an oilman or a motorist - means to be one of the most influential leaders in industry and finance. All these examples illustrate the second collective form ascending and descending currents in social mobility.

From a quantitative point of view, it is necessary to distinguish between the intensity and generality of vertical mobility. Under intensity refers to the vertical social distance or the number of layers - economic, professional or political - passed by an individual in his upward or downward movement in a certain period of time. If, for example, a certain individual rises in a year from the position of a person with an annual income of $500 to a position with an income of $50,000, and another in the same period from the same starting position rises to the level of $1,000, then in the first case the intensity of the economic recovery will be 50 times greater than in the second. For a corresponding change, the intensity of vertical mobility can also be measured in the field of political and professional stratification.

Under universality vertical mobility refers to the number of individuals who have changed their social position in the vertical direction over a certain period of time. The absolute number of such individuals gives absolute universality vertical mobility in the structure of a given population of the country; the proportion of such individuals to the entire population gives relative universality vertical mobility.

Finally, by combining the intensity and relative universality of vertical mobility in a certain social sphere (say, in the economy), one can obtain the aggregate indicator of the vertical economic mobility of a given society. Thus, comparing one society with another, or the same society in different periods of its development, one can find out in which of them or in which period the total mobility is higher. The same can be said about the combined indicator of political and professional vertical mobility.

3. Problems of social mobility in Russia in the 20th-21st centuries.

The process of transition from the economy, which was based on the administrative-bureaucratic way of managing social production and distribution, to the economy based on market relations, and from the monopoly power of the state party nomenklatura to representative democracy, is extremely painful and slow. Strategic and tactical miscalculations in the radical transformation of social relations are aggravated by the peculiarities of the economic potential created in the USSR with its structural asymmetry, monopoly, technological backwardness, etc.

All this was reflected in the social stratification of the Russian society in transition. To give its analysis, to understand its features, it is necessary to consider the social structure of the Soviet period. In the Soviet scientific literature, in accordance with the requirements of the official ideology, a view was asserted from the standpoint of a three-member structure: two friendly classes (working and collective farm peasantry), as well as a social stratum - the people's intelligentsia. Moreover, in this layer, as it were, representatives of the party and state elite, and the village teacher, and the librarian were on an equal footing.

With this approach, the existing differentiation of society was veiled, and the illusion of society moving towards social equality was created.

Of course, in real life, things were far from being the case; Soviet society was hierarchized, moreover, in a very specific way. According to Western and many Russian sociologists, it was not so much a social-class society as a class-caste one. The domination of state property has turned the overwhelming mass of the population into hired workers of the state, alienated from this property.

The decisive role in the location of groups on the social ladder was played by their political potential, determined by their place in the party-state hierarchy.

The highest level in Soviet society was occupied by the party-state nomenklatura, which united the highest strata of the party, state, economic and military bureaucracy. While not formally the owner of national wealth, it had a monopoly and uncontrolled right to use and distribute it. The nomenklatura endowed itself with a wide range of benefits and advantages. It was essentially a closed layer of the class type, not interested in the growth of the number, its share was small - 1.5 - 2% of the country's population.

A step below was the layer that served the nomenklatura, workers employed in the field of ideology, the party press, as well as the scientific elite, prominent artists.

The next step was occupied by a layer, to one degree or another involved in the function of distribution and use of national wealth. These included government officials who distributed scarce social benefits, heads of enterprises, collective farms, state farms, workers in logistics, trade, the service sector, etc.

It is hardly legitimate to refer these strata to the middle class, since they did not have the economic and political independence characteristic of this class.

Of interest is the analysis of the multidimensional social structure of Soviet society in the 1940s and 1950s, given by the American sociologist A. Inkels (1974). He considers it as a pyramid, including 9 strata.

At the top is the ruling elite (the party-state nomenklatura, the highest military ranks).

In second place is the highest stratum of the intelligentsia (prominent figures in literature and art, scientists). Possessing significant privileges, they did not have the powers that the upper stratum had.

Quite high - the third place was given to the "aristocracy of the working class". These are the Stakhanovites, the "beacons", the drummers of the five-year plans. This layer also had great privileges and high prestige in society. It was he who personified "decorative" democracy: his representatives were deputies of the Supreme Soviets of the country and republics, members of the Central Committee of the CPSU (but were not included in the party nomenclature).

Fifth place was occupied by "white collars" (small managers, employees who, as a rule, did not have a higher education).

The sixth layer - "prosperous peasants" who worked in advanced collective farms, where special working conditions were created. In order to form "exemplary" farms, they were allocated additional state financial and material and technical resources, which made it possible to ensure higher labor productivity and living standards.

In seventh place were workers of medium and low qualifications. The size of this group was quite large.

Eighth place was occupied by the "poorest strata of the peasantry" (and such constituted the majority). And finally, at the bottom of the social ladder were prisoners who were deprived of almost all rights. This layer was very significant and amounted to several million people.

It must be admitted that the presented hierarchical structure of Soviet society is very close to the reality that existed.

Studying the social structure of Soviet society in the second half of the 1980s, Russian sociologists T. I. Zaslavskaya and R. V. Ryvkina identified 12 groups. Along with the workers (this layer is represented by three differentiated groups), the collective farm peasantry, the scientific, technical and humanitarian intelligentsia, they distinguish the following groups: the political leaders of the society, responsible employees of the political administration apparatus, responsible workers in trade and consumer services, an organized crime group, etc. How we see that this is far from being a classic “three-membered model”, a multidimensional model is used here. Of course, this division is very conditional, the real social structure "goes into the shadows", because, for example, a huge layer of real production relations turns out to be illegal, hidden in informal connections and decisions.

Under the conditions of the radical transformation of Russian society, deep changes are taking place in its social stratification, which have a number of characteristic features.

First, there is a total marginalization of Russian society. Evaluate it and predict it social consequences is possible only on the basis of the totality of specific processes and conditions in which this phenomenon functions.

For example, marginalization caused by a massive transition from the lower strata of society to higher ones, i.e., upward mobility (although it has certain costs), can generally be assessed positively.

Marginalization, which is characterized by a transition to the lower strata (with downward mobility), if, moreover, is long-term and massive, leads to severe social consequences.

In our society, we see both upward and downward mobility. But it is alarming that the latter has acquired a "landslide" character. Particular attention should be paid to the growing layer of the marginalized, knocked out of their socio-cultural environment and turned into a lumpenized layer (beggars, homeless people, vagrants, etc.).

The next feature is the blocking of the formation of the middle class. During the Soviet period, there was a significant segment of the population in Russia, which represented a potential middle class (intelligentsia, white-collar workers, highly skilled workers). However, the transformation of these layers into the middle class does not occur, there is no process of "class crystallization".

The fact is that it was precisely these strata that descended (and this process continues) into the lower class, being on the verge of poverty or below its line. First of all, this applies to the intelligentsia. Here we are confronted with a phenomenon that can be called the phenomenon of the "new poor", an exceptional phenomenon, probably not encountered in the history of civilization in any society. Both in pre-revolutionary Russia and in the developing countries of any region of the modern world, not to mention, of course, developed countries, she had and, has a fairly high prestige in society, her financial situation(even in poor countries) is at the proper level to lead a decent life.

Today in Russia the share of deductions for science, education, health care, culture in the budget is catastrophically decreasing. The salary of scientific, scientific and pedagogical personnel, medical workers, cultural workers is increasingly lagging behind the national average, not providing a living wage, and certain categories physiological minimum. And since almost all of our intelligentsia is "budgetary", impoverishment is inevitably approaching it.

There is a reduction in scientific workers, many specialists are moving to commercial structures(a huge share of which is trade and intermediary) and are disqualified. The prestige of education in society is falling. The consequence may be a violation of the necessary reproduction of the social structure of society.

A stratum of highly skilled workers associated with advanced technologies and employed primarily in the military-industrial complex found itself in a similar position.

As a result, the lower class in Russian society currently makes up approximately 70% of the population.

There is a growth of the upper class (in comparison with the upper class of Soviet society). It consists of several groups. Firstly, these are large entrepreneurs, owners of various types of capital (financial, commercial, industrial). Secondly, these are state officials who are related to state material and financial resources, their distribution and transfer to private hands, as well as supervising the activities of semi-state and private enterprises and institutions.

At the same time, it should be emphasized that a significant part of this stratum in Russia is made up of representatives of the former nomenklatura, who have retained their positions in state power structures.

The majority of apparatchiks today realize that the market is economically inevitable, moreover, they are interested in the emergence of a market. But we are not talking about the "European" market with unconditional private property, but about the "Asian" market - with a truncated reformed private property, where the main right (the right to dispose) would remain in the hands of the bureaucracy.

Thirdly, these are the heads of state and semi-state (JSC) enterprises (“the directors’ corps”), in conditions of lack of control both from below and from above, appointing themselves ultra-high salaries, bonuses and using the privatization and corporatization of enterprises to their advantage.

Finally, these are representatives of criminal structures that are closely intertwined with entrepreneurial structures (or collect “tribute” from them), and are also increasingly linked with state structures.

One more feature of the stratification of Russian society can be singled out - social polarization, which is based on property stratification, which continues to deepen.

The wage ratio of the top 10% to the bottom 10% of Russians was 16:1 in 1992 and 26:1 in 1993. For comparison: in 1989 this ratio in the USSR was 4:1, in the USA - 6:1, in Latin America - 12:1. According to official data, 20% of the richest Russians appropriate 43% of total cash income, 20% of the poorest - 7%.

There are several options for dividing Russians according to the level of material security.

According to them, at the top is a narrow layer of the super-rich (3-5%), then a layer of moderately wealthy (7% according to these calculations and 12-15% - according to others), finally, the poor (25% and 40% respectively) and the poor ( 65% and 40% respectively).

The consequence of property polarization is inevitably social and political confrontation in the country, the growth of social tension. If this trend continues, it could lead to deep social upheavals.

Special attention should be paid to the characteristics of the working class and the peasantry. They now represent an extremely heterogeneous mass, not only in terms of traditional criteria (qualifications, education, industry characteristics, etc.), but also in terms of ownership and income.

In the working class, there is a deep differentiation associated with the attitude to one or another form of ownership - state, joint, cooperative, joint-stock, individual, etc. Differences in income, labor productivity, economic and political interests, etc. e. If the interests of workers employed at state enterprises consist primarily in increasing tariffs, securing financial support from the state, then the interests of workers in non-state enterprises are in reducing taxes, in expanding freedom of economic activity, legal support for it, etc.

The position of the peasantry also changed. Along with collective-farm property, joint-stock, individual and other forms of property arose. The transformation processes in agriculture have proven to be extremely complex. An attempt to blindly copy Western experience in terms of the massive replacement of collective farms by farms failed, since it was initially voluntaristic, not taking into account the deep specifics of Russian conditions. The material and technical equipment of agriculture, the development of infrastructure, the possibility state support farms, legal insecurity, and finally, the mentality of the people - taking into account all these components is a necessary condition for effective reforms, and neglecting them cannot but give a negative result.

At the same time, for example, the level of state support for agriculture is constantly falling. If before 1985 it was 12-15%, then in 1991-1993. - 7-10%. For comparison: state subsidies in the income of farmers during this period in the EU countries amounted to 49%, the USA - 30%, Japan - 66%, Finland - 71%.

The peasantry as a whole is now classified as a conservative part of society (which is confirmed by the voting results). But if we are faced with the resistance of the “social material”, the reasonable way out is not to blame the people, not to use forceful methods, but to look for errors in the strategy and tactics of transformation.

Thus, if we depict the stratification of modern Russian society graphically, it will represent a pyramid with a powerful base represented by the lower class.

Such a profile cannot but cause concern. If the bulk of the population is made up of the lower class, if the middle class that stabilizes society is thinned out, the result will be an increase in social tension with a forecast to result in an open struggle for the redistribution of wealth and power. The pyramid may topple over.

Russia is now in a transitional state, on a sharp break. The spontaneously developing process of stratification carries a threat to the stability of society. It is necessary, using the expression of T. Parsons, "external intrusion" of power into the emerging system of rational placement of social positions with all the ensuing consequences, when the natural profile of stratification becomes the key to both sustainability and progressive development of society.

Conclusion

Analysis of the hierarchical structure of society shows that it is not frozen, it constantly fluctuates and moves both horizontally and vertically. When we talk about a social group or individual changing their social position, we are dealing with social mobility. It can be horizontal (in this case, the concept of social displacement is used), if there is a transition to other professional or other groups, but equal in status. Vertical (upward) mobility means the transition of an individual or group to a higher social position with greater prestige, income, power.

Downward mobility is also possible, involving movement to lower hierarchical positions.

During periods of revolutions and social cataclysms, there is a radical change in the social structure, a radical replacement of the upper stratum with the overthrow of the former elite, the emergence of new classes and social groups, and mass group mobility.

In stable periods, social mobility increases during periods of economic restructuring. At the same time, an important “social lift” that ensures vertical mobility is education, the role of which is growing in the context of the transition from an industrial to an information society.

Social mobility is a fairly reliable indicator of the level of “openness” or “closedness” of a society. A striking example of a "closed" society is the caste system in India. A high degree of closeness is characteristic of a feudal society. On the contrary, bourgeois-democratic societies, being open, are characterized by high level social mobility. However, it should be noted that here, too, vertical social mobility is not absolutely free, and the transition from one social stratum to another, a higher one, is not carried out without resistance.

Social mobility puts the individual in the conditions of the need for adaptation in a new socio-cultural environment. This process can be very difficult. A person who has lost the socio-cultural world familiar to him, but who has not been able to accept the norms and values ​​of the new group, finds himself, as it were, on the verge of two cultures, becomes marginalized. This is also characteristic of migrants, both ethnic and territorial. In such conditions, a person experiences discomfort, stress. Mass marginality breeds serious social problems. It, as a rule, distinguishes societies that are at sharp turning points in history. This is the period Russia is going through at the present time.

Literature

1. Romanenko L.M. Civil society (sociological dictionary-reference book). M., 1995.

2. Osipov G.V. etc. Sociology. M., 1995.

3. Smelzer N.J. Sociology. M., 1994.

4. Golenkova Z.T., Viktyuk V.V., Gridchin Yu.V., Chernykh A.I., Romanenko L.M. Formation of civil society and social stratification // Sotsis. 1996. No. 6.

5. Komarov M.S. Introduction to sociology: Textbook for higher institutions. – M.: Nauka, 1994.

6. Prigogine A.I. Modern sociology of organizations. – M.: Interpraks, 1995.

7. Frolov S.S. Sociology. Textbook for higher educational institutions. – M.: Nauka, 1994.

8. Zborovsky G.E., Orlov G.P. Sociology. Textbook for humanitarian universities. – M.: Interpraks, 1995. - 344s.

9. Fundamentals of sociology. Lecture course. Responsible editor Dr. fil. Sciences A.G. Efendiev. - M .: Society "Knowledge" of Russia, 1993. - 384 p.

3.1 Introductory remarks

People are in constant motion, and society is in development. The totality of social movements of people in society, i.e. changes in their status is called social mobility. This topic has interested humanity for a long time. The unexpected rise of a man or his sudden fall is a favorite plot of folk tales: a cunning beggar suddenly becomes rich, a poor prince becomes a king, and the industrious Cinderella marries a prince, thereby increasing her status and prestige.

However, the history of mankind is made up not so much of individual destinies as of the movement of large social groups. The landed aristocracy is being replaced by the financial bourgeoisie, low-skilled professions are being squeezed out of modern production by representatives of the so-called white-collar workers - engineers, programmers, operators of robotic complexes. Wars and revolutions reshaped the social structure of society, raising some to the top of the pyramid and lowering others. Similar changes took place in Russian society after the October Revolution of 1917. They are still taking place today, when the business elite is replacing the party elite.

There is a certain asymmetry between ascent and descent, everyone wants to go up and no one wants to go down the social ladder. As a rule, ascent is a voluntary phenomenon, while descent is forced.

Research shows that those with higher status prefer high positions for themselves and their children, but those with lower status want the same for themselves and their children. This is how it turns out in human society: everyone is striving upward and no one is downward.

In this chapter, we will consider the essence, causes, typology, mechanisms, channels of social mobility, as well as factors influencing it.

3.2 Mobility classification

There are two main types of social mobility - intergenerational and intragenerational, and two main types - vertical and horizontal. They, in turn, fall into subspecies and subtypes that are closely related to each other.

Intergenerational mobility implies that children achieve a higher social position or fall to a lower rung than their parents. Example: A miner's son becomes an engineer.

Intragenerational mobility takes place where the same individual, beyond comparison with his father, changes social positions several times throughout his life. Otherwise, it is called a social career. Example: a turner becomes an engineer, and then a shop manager, plant director, minister of the engineering industry.

The first type of mobility refers to long-term, and the second - to short-term processes. In the first case, sociologists are more interested in interclass mobility, and in the second - the movement from the sphere of physical labor to the sphere of mental labor.

Vertical mobility implies moving from one stratum (estate, class, caste) to another.

Depending on the direction of movement, there is upward mobility (social ascent, upward movement) and downward mobility (social descent, downward movement).

Promotion is an example of upward mobility, dismissal, demolition is an example of downward mobility.

Horizontal mobility implies the transition of an individual from one social group to another, located at the same level.

An example is the movement from an Orthodox to a Catholic religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family (parental) to another (one's own, newly formed), from one profession to another. Such movements occur without a noticeable change in social position in the vertical direction.

Geographical mobility is a variation of horizontal mobility. It does not imply a change in status or group, but a movement from one place to another while maintaining the same status.

An example is international and interregional tourism, moving from a city to a village and back, moving from one enterprise to another.

If a change of status is added to a change of place, then geographic mobility turns into migration.

If a villager comes to the city to visit relatives, then this is geographic mobility. If he moved to the city for permanent residence and found a job here, then this is migration. He changed his profession.

It is possible to classify social mobility according to other criteria. So, for example, they distinguish:

individual mobility, when moving down, up or horizontally occurs for each person independently of others, and

group mobility, when movements occur collectively, for example, after a social revolution, the old class cedes its dominant positions to the new class.

Individual mobility and group mobility are connected in a certain way with assigned and achieved status. Do you think individual mobility is more in line with assigned or achieved status? (Try to figure this out on your own first, and then read the chapter to the end.)

These are the main types, types and forms (between these terms significant differences no) social mobility. In addition to them, organized mobility is sometimes distinguished, when the movement of a person or entire groups up, down or horizontally is controlled by the state

a) with the consent of the people themselves, b) without their consent. Voluntary organized mobility should include the so-called socialist organizational recruitment, public calls for Komsomol construction projects, etc. Involuntary organized mobility can be attributed to the repatriation (resettlement) of small peoples and dispossession during the years of Stalinism.

Structural mobility must be distinguished from organized mobility. It is caused by changes in the structure of the national economy and occurs against the will and consciousness of individual individuals. For example, the disappearance or reduction of industries or professions leads to the displacement of large masses of people. In the 1950s and 1970s, small villages were reduced and enlarged in the USSR.

The main and non-main types (types, forms) of mobility differ as follows.

The main views characterize all or most societies in any historical era. Of course, the intensity or volume of mobility is not the same everywhere.

Non-principal types of mobility are inherent in some types of society and are not inherent in others. (Look for concrete examples in support of this thesis.

The main and non-main types (types, forms) of mobility exist in three main areas of society - economic, political, professional. Mobility practically does not occur (with rare exceptions) in the demographic sphere and is quite limited in the religious sphere. Indeed, it is impossible to migrate from a man to a woman, and the transition from childhood to adolescence does not apply to mobility. Voluntary and forced change of religion in human history occurred repeatedly. Suffice it to recall the baptism of Russia, the conversion of the Indians to the Christian faith after the discovery of America by Columbus. However, such events do not occur regularly. They are of interest to historians rather than sociologists.

Let us now turn to specific types and types of mobility.

3.3 Group mobility

It occurs there and then, where and when the social significance of an entire class, estate, caste, rank, or category rises or falls. The October Revolution led to the rise of the Bolsheviks, who previously did not have a recognized high position. Brahmins became the highest caste as a result of a long and stubborn struggle, and earlier they were on an equal footing with the kshatriyas. In ancient Greece, after the adoption of the constitution, most people were freed from slavery and climbed the social ladder, and many of their former masters went down.

The transition of power from a hereditary aristocracy to a plutocracy (an aristocracy based on the principles of wealth) had the same consequences. In 212 AD almost the entire population of the Roman Empire received the status of Roman citizenship. Thanks to this, huge masses of people who were previously considered to be deprived of their rights have increased their social status. The invasion of the barbarians (Huns and Goths) disrupted the social stratification of the Roman Empire: one by one, the old aristocratic families disappeared, and they were replaced by new ones. Foreigners founded new dynasties and new nobility.

As P. Sorokin showed on a huge historical material, the following factors served as the reasons for group mobility:

social revolutions;

foreign interventions, invasions;

interstate wars;

civil wars;

military coups;

change of political regimes;

replacing the old constitution with a new one;

peasant uprisings;

internecine struggle of aristocratic families;

creation of an empire.

Group mobility takes place where there is a change in the very system of stratification.

3.4 Individual mobility: comparative analysis

Social mobility in the US and the former Soviet Union has both similarities and differences. The similarity is explained by the fact that both countries are industrialized powers, and the differences are explained by the peculiarity political regime board. Thus, studies by American and Soviet sociologists, covering approximately the same period (70s), but carried out independently of each other, gave the same figures: up to 40% of employees in both the USA and Russia come from workers ; in both the US and Russia, more than two-thirds of the population is involved in social mobility.

Another regularity is also confirmed: social mobility in both countries is most influenced not by the profession and education of the father, but by the son's own achievements in education. The higher the education, the more chances to move up the social ladder.

In both the US and Russia, another curious fact has been discovered: a well-educated son of a worker has just as much chance of promotion as a poorly educated person from the middle classes, in particular employees. Although the second can help parents.

The peculiarity of the United States lies in the large flow of immigrants. Unskilled workers - immigrants who come to the country from all parts of the world, occupy the lower rungs of the social ladder, displacing or hastening the advance of Native Americans. Rural migration has the same effect, not only in the US, but also in Russia.

In both countries, upward mobility has so far averaged 20% more than downward mobility. But both types of vertical mobility were inferior to horizontal mobility in their own way. This means the following: in two countries, the level of mobility is high (up to 70-80% of the population), but 70% is horizontal mobility - movement within the boundaries of the same class and even layer (stratum).

Even in the USA, where, according to legend, every sweeper can become a millionaire, the conclusion made by P. Sorokin back in 1927 remains valid: most people start their working careers at the same social level as their parents, and only a very few manage to make significant progress. In other words, the average citizen moves one rung up or down in his life, rarely anyone manages to step several steps at once.

Thus, 10% of Americans, 7% of Japanese and Dutch, 9% of British, 2% of French, Germans and Danes, 1% of Italians rise from workers to the upper middle class. To the factors of individual mobility, i.e. reasons that allow one person to achieve greater success than another, sociologists in both countries include:

the social status of the family;

level of education;

nationality;

physical and mental abilities, external data;

receiving education;

place of residence;

profitable marriage.

Mobile individuals begin socialization in one class and end in another. They are literally torn between dissimilar cultures and lifestyles. They do not know how to behave, dress, talk in terms of the standards of another class. Often adaptation to new conditions remains very superficial. A typical example is Moliere's tradesman in the nobility. (Think of other literary characters who would illustrate the superficial assimilation of manners when moving from one class, layer to another.)

In all industrialized countries, it is more difficult for women to move up than for men. Often they increase their social status only through an advantageous marriage. Therefore, getting a job, women of this orientation choose those professions where it is most likely to find a "suitable man." What do you think these professions or places of work are? Give examples from life or literature when marriage acted as a "social lift" for women of humble origin.

During the Soviet period, our society was the most mobile society in the world along with America. A free education available to all strata offered everyone the same opportunities for advancement that existed only in the United States. Nowhere in the world did the elite of society literally form from all strata of society in a short time. At the end of this period, mobility slowed down, but increased again in the 1990s.

The most dynamic Soviet society was not only in terms of education and social mobility, but also in terms of industrial development. For many years, the USSR held the first place in terms of the pace of industrial progress. All these are signs of a modern industrial society that have made the USSR, as Western sociologists have written, one of the world's leading countries in terms of social mobility.

3.5 Structural mobility

Industrialization opens new vacancies in vertical mobility. The development of industry three centuries ago required the transformation of the peasantry into a proletariat. In the late stage of industrialization, the working class became the largest part of the employed population. The main factor of vertical mobility was the education system.

Industrialization is associated not only with interclass but also with intraclass changes. At the stage of conveyor or mass production at the beginning of the 20th century, unskilled and unskilled workers remained the predominant group. Mechanization and then automation required an expansion of the ranks of skilled and highly skilled workers. In the 1950s, 40% of workers in developed countries were poorly or unskilled. In 1966, 20% of such people remained.

As unskilled labor was reduced, the need for employees, managers, and businessmen grew. The sphere of industrial and agricultural labor narrowed, while the sphere of service and management expanded.

In an industrial society, the structure of the national economy determines mobility. In other words, professional mobility in the USA, England, Russia or Japan does not depend on the individual characteristics of people, but on the structural features of the economy, the relationship of industries and the shifts taking place here.

Changing the structure of the activity of the US population

The number of people employed in agriculture in the United States decreased from 1900 to 1980 by 10 times. The small farmers became the respectable petty bourgeois class, and the agricultural laborers were added to the ranks of the working class. The stratum of professionals and managers doubled over that period. The number of trade workers and clerks increased by 4 times.

Such transformations are characteristic of modern societies: from farm to factory in the early stages of industrialization and from factory to office in the later stages. Today, in developed countries, over 50% of the workforce is engaged in knowledge work, compared with 10-15% at the beginning of the century.

During this century, vacancies in industrialized countries declined in the working professions and expanded in the field of management. But managerial vacancies were filled not by representatives of the workers, but by the middle class. However, the number of managerial jobs grew faster than the number of children in the middle class able to fill them. The vacuum formed in the 50s was partly filled by working youth.

This was made possible by the availability of higher education for ordinary Americans.

In the developed capitalist countries, industrialization was completed earlier than in the former socialist countries (USSR, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc.). The lag could not but affect the nature of social mobility: in the capitalist countries, the proportion of leaders and intelligentsia, who come from workers and peasants, is one-third, and in the former socialist countries, three-quarters. In countries such as England, which have long passed the stage of industrialization, the proportion of workers of peasant origin is very low, there are more so-called hereditary workers. On the contrary, in Eastern European countries this share is very high and sometimes reaches 50%.

It is due to structural mobility that the two opposite poles of the professional pyramid turned out to be the least mobile. In the former socialist countries, the two layers were the most closed - the layer of top managers and the layer of auxiliary workers located at the bottom of the pyramid - layers that fill the most prestigious and the most unprestigious spheres of activity. (Try to answer the question "why?")

3.6 Volume and distance of mobility

Social mobility is measured using two main indicators.

Mobility distance is the number of steps that individuals managed to climb or had to descend.

The normal distance is considered to be moving one or two steps up or down. Most social transitions happen this way. Abnormal distance - an unexpected rise to the top of the social ladder or fall to its bottom.

The volume of mobility is understood as the number of individuals who have moved up the social ladder in a vertical direction over a certain period of time.

If the volume is calculated by the number of displaced individuals, then it is called absolute, and if the ratio of this quantity to the entire population, then it is relative and is indicated as a percentage.

The total volume or scale of mobility determines the number of movements across all strata together, and the differentiated one determines the number of movements across individual strata, layers, and classes. The fact that in an industrial society two-thirds of the population is mobile refers to the total volume, and 37% of the children of workers who have become employees belongs to the differentiated volume.

The scale of social mobility is defined as the percentage of those who have changed, in comparison with their fathers, their social status. When Hungary was capitalist, i.e. in the 1930s, the scale of mobility was 50%. In socialist Hungary (60s) it rose to 64%, and in 1983 to 72%. As a result of socialist transformations, Hungarian society became as open as the developed capitalist countries.

With good reason this conclusion is applicable to the USSR. Western European and American scholars who conducted comparative studies found that mobility in Eastern European countries is higher than in developed capitalist countries.

The change in mobility for individual layers is described by two indicators. The first is the coefficient of mobility of leaving the social stratum. It shows, for example, how many sons of skilled workers became intellectuals or peasants. The second is the coefficient of mobility of entry into the social stratum. It indicates from which strata, for example, the stratum of intellectuals is replenished. It reveals the social origin of people.

3.7 Demographic drivers of mobility

Vertical and horizontal mobility are influenced by gender, age, birth rate, death rate, population density. Overpopulated countries are more likely to experience the effects of emigration than immigration. Where the birth rate is high, the population is younger and therefore more mobile, and vice versa.

Professional mobility is typical for the young, economic mobility for adults, and political mobility for the elderly.

The birth rate is unevenly distributed across classes. The lower classes tend to have more children, while the upper classes tend to have fewer. There is a pattern: the higher a person climbs the social ladder, the fewer children he has.

Even if every son of a rich man follows in the footsteps of his father, voids are still formed on the upper steps of the social pyramid, which are filled by people from the lower classes. In no class do people plan for the exact number of children needed to replace parents. The number of vacancies and the number of applicants for the occupation of certain social positions in different classes is different.

Professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) and skilled employees do not have enough children to fill their jobs in the next generation. By contrast, farmers and agricultural workers, in the US, have 50% more children than they need to be self-sustaining. It is not difficult to calculate in which direction social mobility should proceed in modern society.

High and low birth rates in different classes have the same effect on vertical mobility as population density in different countries has on horizontal mobility. Strata, like countries, can be overpopulated or underpopulated.

3.8 Mobility in the USSR

Soviet sociologists in the 1960s and 1980s quite actively studied inter- and intra-generational, as well as inter- and intra-class mobility. The main classes were considered to be workers and peasants, and the intelligentsia was considered a class-like stratum.

The transition between these three groups is called interclass transfers, and the transition within a group is called intraclass. If a worker, peasant or intellectual raised the level of education and moved from a low-skilled position to a medium or highly qualified position, while remaining a worker, peasant or intellectual, then he made an intra-class movement.

When the workers, the peasantry and the intelligentsia are replenished mainly by people from their own class, one speaks of the self-reproduction of the class or its reproduction on its own basis. According to large-scale studies (they cover the country, entire regions or cities) conducted in different years by F.R. Filippov, M.Kh. Titmoy, L.A. Gordon, V.N. Shubkin, 2/3 of the intelligentsia is replenished by people from this group. This proportion is even higher among the workers and peasants. The children of workers and peasants pass into the category of intellectuals more often than the children of intellectuals become peasants and workers.

The transition from peasants and workers to the intelligentsia is called vertical interclass mobility. She was especially active in the 1930s and 1950s. The old intelligentsia was destroyed, its place was taken by immigrants from the workers and peasants. A new social community- "people's intelligentsia". The Bolshevik Party nominated ordinary people to leading positions in industry, agriculture, and the state apparatus. They were called "red directors", "promoted". But in the 1960s and 1980s, interclass mobility slowed down. A period of stabilization has begun.

Intra-class mobility came to the fore; in the 1970s and 1980s, it accounted for up to 80% of all movements. Intra-class mobility is also called the transition from simple to complex labor. The worker remains a worker, but his qualifications are constantly growing.

Interesting data on the demographic composition of the migrants. In general, women are more mobile than men, the young are more mobile than the elderly. But men are more likely than women to jump several steps in their careers. The latter prefer to move gradually. From low-skilled workers to highly skilled and specialists, men advance several times more often than women, for whom the transition from highly skilled workers to specialists is a common thing.

A survey of people and an analysis of work books convinces that 90% of all movements occur in the first decade of employment, 9% in the second, 1%

For the third. The initial period accounts for up to 95% of the so-called return movements, when people return to the position they left. Such data only confirm what everyone knows at the level of common sense: young people are looking for themselves, trying different professions, leaving and returning.

3.9 Upward mobility channels

The most complete description of vertical mobility channels is given by P. Sorokin. Only he calls them "vertical circulation channels". He believes that since vertical mobility exists to some extent in any society, even in primitive ones, there are no impassable boundaries between strata. Between them there are various "holes", "elevators", "membranes" through which individuals move up and down.

Of particular interest are social institutions

Army, church, school, family, property, which are used as channels of social circulation. P. Sorokin gives the following data.

The army functions most intensively as such a channel not in peacetime, but in wartime. Large losses among the command staff lead to the filling of vacancies from lower ranks. In wartime, soldiers advance through talent and bravery. Having risen in rank, they use the received power as a channel for further advancement and accumulation of wealth. They have the opportunity to rob, loot, seize trophies, take indemnities, take away slaves, surround themselves with pompous ceremonies, titles, and transfer their power by inheritance.

Of the 92 Roman emperors, 36 are known to have achieved this, starting from the lowest ranks. Of the 65 Byzantine emperors, 12 advanced through military careers. Napoleon and his entourage - marshals, generals and the kings of Europe appointed by him - came from commoners. Cromwell, Grant, Washington and thousands of other commanders have risen to the highest positions thanks to the army.

The Church as a channel of social circulation has moved a large number of people from the bottom to the top of society. Gebbon, archbishop of Reims, was a slave in the past, Pope Gregory VII is the son of a carpenter. P. Sorokin studied the history of 144 Roman Catholic popes and found that 28 came from the lower classes, and 27 from the middle strata. The institution of celibacy (celibacy), introduced in the 11th century by Pope Gregory VII, obliged the Catholic clergy not to have children. Thanks to this, after the death of officials, the vacant positions were filled with new people.

In addition to the upward movement, the church was a channel for the downward movement. Thousands of heretics, pagans, enemies of the church were brought to justice, ruined and destroyed. Among them were many kings, dukes, princes, lords, aristocrats and nobles of high ranks.

School. The institutions of education and upbringing, no matter what concrete form they take, have served in all ages as a powerful channel of social circulation. The USA and the USSR belong to societies where schools are available to all members. In such a society, the "social elevator" moves from the very bottom, passes through all the floors and reaches the very top.

The USA and the USSR are the most striking example of how one can achieve impressive success, become the great industrial powers of the world, adhering to opposite political and ideological values, but equally providing their citizens with equal opportunities for education.

Britain represents the other pole, where the privileged schools are accessible only to the upper classes. The "social elevator" is short: it moves only along the upper floors of the social building.

An example of a "long elevator" is ancient China. During the era of Confucius, schools were open to all classes. Examinations were held every three years. The best students, regardless of their family status, were selected and transferred to higher schools, and then to universities, from where they got to high government posts. Under the influence of Confucius, the government of the mandarins was reputed to be the government of Chinese intellectuals exalted through the school "mechanism". The educational test performed, as it were, the role of universal suffrage.

Thus, the Chinese school constantly uplifted the common people and prevented the automatic advancement of the upper classes if they did not meet the professional requirements. As a result, official duties in the government were carried out quite skillfully, and positions were filled based on personal talents.

Large competitions for colleges and universities in many countries are explained by the fact that education is the fastest and most accessible channel of vertical mobility.

Property most clearly manifests itself in the form of accumulated wealth and money. They are one of the simplest and most effective ways of social advancement. In the XV-XVIII centuries, money began to rule European society. Achieved a high position only those who had money, and humble origin. Such were the last periods of the history of Ancient Greece and Rome.

P. Sorokin found that not all, but only some occupations and professions contribute to the accumulation of wealth. According to his calculations, in 29% of cases this allows the occupation of a manufacturer, in 21% - a banker and a stockbroker, in 12% - a trader. The professions of artists, artists, inventors, statesmen, miners and some others do not provide such opportunities.

Family and marriage become channels of vertical circulation in the event that representatives of different social statuses enter the union. In European society, the marriage of a poor, but titled partner with a rich, but ignoble one, was common. As a result, both moved up the social ladder, each getting what he wanted.

We find an example of downward mobility in antiquity. According to Roman law, a free woman who married a slave became a slave herself and lost the status of a free citizen.

Even primitive societies were interested in being ruled by the most gifted. But how to discover innate talents if there are no special methods and techniques? The ancients found a very simple way. Through empirical observation, they found that smart parents are more likely to have smart children, and vice versa. The thesis about the inheritance of the qualities of parents was firmly established in the minds of our ancestors. It is he who underlies the prohibition of inter-caste marriages. The lower the social position, the fewer virtues parents have and their children inherit, and vice versa. Thus, the institution of inheritance of the social status of parents by children gradually arose: a person born in a family with a high social rank also deserves a high rank.

The family has become the main mechanism of social selection, determination and inheritance of social status.

The origin of a noble family does not automatically guarantee a good heredity and a decent education. Parents cared about the best possible upbringing of children; this became a mandatory norm for the aristocracy. In poor families, parents could not give proper education and upbringing. Therefore, it was from noble families that the administrative elite was recruited. The family has become one of the institutions for the distribution of members of society by strata.

Ancient societies were more concerned about the stability of the family, because for them it was at the same time a school, a center for vocational training, and a production association, and much more. When the family began to lose its significance, the halo of holiness, marriages began to break up easily, and divorces became an everyday event, society had to take on all these functions. Schools emerged outside the family, production outside the family, service outside the family.

Now the children remain in the family, only while they are minors. In fact, they grow up outside the family. The meaning of purity of blood, inherited qualities has been lost. People are increasingly beginning to be judged not by their family origin, but by personal qualities.

3.10 Group closure

The erection of social barriers and partitions, the restriction of access to another group or the closure of the group in itself is called a social clause (social closure). M. Weber wrote about this phenomenon. This problem is actively discussed in modern sociology. A clause designates a process and a result at the same time.

In a young, rapidly developing society, vertical mobility is very intensive. Russia of the era of Peter I and Soviet Russia in the 20-30s, Russia of the era of perestroika (90s of the XX century) are examples of such a society. People from the lower classes, thanks to fortunate circumstances, hard work or resourcefulness, quickly moved up. There were many vacancies for them here.

But now all the places are filled, the upward movement is slowing down. The new wealthy class is blocked from society by many social barriers. Getting into it is now incredibly difficult. The social group is closed.

In the USA and Japan only 7-10% of workers rise to the upper class. The children of businessmen, politicians, lawyers have 5-8 times more opportunities to follow their fathers than it could be if society were completely open. The higher the social class, the more difficult it is to penetrate it. The rich send their children to privileged schools and universities that are expensive but provide excellent education.

A good education is a necessary condition for obtaining a highly prestigious profession or position: diplomat, minister, banker, professor. It is the upper class that makes laws that are beneficial to itself and disadvantageous to others.

Modern society is becoming more immobile and closed to movement. Senior positions, which at an early stage were elective, at later stages become hereditary. In ancient Egypt, only in the later stages did a strict custom of succession to official posts appear. In Sparta, at the earliest stages, foreigners were allowed to the rank of full-fledged citizens, later this became an exception. In 451 BC Pericles introduced a law according to which the privilege of free citizenship was granted only to those whose both parents were natives of Attica and free (full) citizens. In the Roman Empire, towards the end of its existence, all social strata and groups became completely closed.

In Venice in 1296 the layer of the aristocracy was open, and from 1775, when the aristocracy lost its former importance, the ranks become closed. Rank royal nobility in early feudal Europe was accessible to anyone, but subsequently becomes impenetrable to new people.

In England after the 16th century, and in France after the 17th century, the desire for caste isolation began to manifest itself among the bourgeoisie as well.

Thus, the tendency towards social closeness is inherent in all societies. It characterizes the stabilization of social life, the transition from an early to a mature stage of development, as well as an increase in the role of attributed status and a decrease in the role of achieved.

The social closure of the upper class in Russia began to be observed already in 1993. Before that, i.e. between 1989 and 1992, opportunities to enrich themselves and move up were open to all Russians, albeit unequally. It is known that the capacity of the upper class is objectively limited and amounts to no more than 3-5% of the population. The ease with which large capitals were made in 1989-1992 has disappeared. Today, access to the elite requires capital and capabilities that most people do not have. There is a kind of closure of the upper class, it passes laws that restrict access to its ranks, creates private schools. The entertainment sphere of the elite is no longer available to other categories. It includes not only expensive salons, boarding houses, bars, clubs, but also holidays in world resorts.

At the same time, access is open to the rural and urban middle class. The stratum of farmers is extremely small and does not exceed 1%. The middle urban strata have not yet formed. But their replenishment depends on how soon the "new Russians" and the country's leadership will pay for skilled mental labor not at the subsistence level, but at its market price.

In stable societies - the USA, England, France, Germany and some others - the upper class has long since become hereditary. The accumulation of wealth began within kindred clans, created by mutual marriages several centuries ago. In the United States, the upper class has maintained family continuity through time since the 18th century and dates back to the settlers from Northern Ireland. The socialization of children in boarding schools and then practice in parenting fields, corporations and companies isolates the upper class from the rest of society. He forms his own system of values, social norms, etiquette, rules of conduct and lifestyle. T. Veblen called it demonstratively wasteful. In modern Russian society, the upper class has a second feature - demonstrative luxury, but not the first - heredity. But it also begins to actively form due to the closure of the highest stratum.

3.11 Migration

Migration is the movement of people from country to country, from district to district, from city to village (and vice versa), from city to city, from village to village. In other words, migration is territorial movements. They are seasonal, i.e. depending on the season (tourism, treatment, study, agricultural work), and pendulum - regular movement from a given point and return to it. Such types of migration are temporary and returnable.

There are also immigration and emigration.

Migration is the movement of people within one country.

Emigration - leaving the country for permanent residence or long-term residence.

Immigration - entry into a given country for permanent residence or long-term residence.

So, immigrants are moving in, and emigrants are moving out (voluntarily or involuntarily).

Emigration reduces the population. If the most talented and qualified residents leave, then not only the number, but also the qualitative composition of the population decreases. Immigration increases the population.

The arrival of a highly skilled labor force in the country increases the qualitative composition of the population, while the arrival of a low-skilled labor force has the opposite effect.

Thanks to emigration and migration, new cities, countries arose, entire continents were settled. It is known that in cities the birth rate is low and constantly decreasing. Consequently, all large cities, especially millionaire cities, have come into existence through migration.

After the discovery of America by Columbus, thousands and millions of immigrants moved here from Europe. North America, Latin America and Australia have become states thanks to large migration processes. Siberia was mastered by migration.

In total in the XVIII century. two powerful streams of migration emanated from Europe - to America and to Russia. In Russia, the Volga region was especially actively populated. In 1762, the famous decree of Catherine II was published on the invitation of foreigners to civil service and settlement. Mostly Germans from Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Germany responded. The first stream of visitors were artisans, the second - peasants. They formed agricultural colonies in the steppe zone of Russia.

Emigration occurs where living conditions worsen and opportunities for upward mobility narrow. The peasants fled to Siberia and the Don, where the Cossacks had developed, because of the strengthening of serfdom. It was not aristocrats who left Europe, but social outsiders: ruined peasants, fugitives, unemployed, adventurers. In America, they built a new society and quickly moved up the social ladder.

Horizontal mobility in such cases acts as a means to solve the problems that arise in the field of vertical mobility. The fugitive serfs who founded the Don Cossacks became free and prosperous, i.e. raised their political and economic status at the same time. Although the professional status could remain unchanged: the peasants continued to engage in arable farming on the new lands.

Migration does not always take massive forms. In calm times, it affects small groups or individuals. Their movement occurs, as a rule, spontaneously. Demographers identify two main flows of migration within one country: city-rural and city-city. It has been established that until the industrialization is completed in the country, people move mainly from the village to the city. Upon its completion, and this is typical for the United States and Western Europe, people move from the city to suburban areas and rural areas.

A strange regularity is revealed: the flows of migrants are directed to those places where social mobility is the highest. And one more thing: those who move from city to city arrange their lives easier and achieve greater success than those who move from village to city, and vice versa. (Try to explain the reasons for this phenomenon yourself.)

Major migration phenomena include the so-called migrations of peoples.

It is both ethnic and economic processes. The Great Invasion is called the invasion of barbarian tribes in the 5th century into different countries of Europe.

1. The concept of social mobility; its forms

Social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual or social group from one social position to another. There are two main types of social mobility: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal social mobility refers to the transition of an individual from one social group to another, located at the same level. The movement of an individual from a Baptist to a Methodist religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family to another, from one factory to another, while maintaining his professional status, are all examples of horizontal social mobility. In all these cases, "movement" can occur without any noticeable change in the social position of the individual in the vertical direction. Vertical social mobility refers to those relationships that arise when an individual moves from one social stratum to another. Depending on the direction of movement, there are two types of vertical mobility: ascending and descending. Accordingly, there are downward and upward currents of economic, political and professional mobility. Updrafts exist in two forms: the penetration of the individual from the lower stratum into the higher stratum; or the creation by such individuals of a new group and the penetration of the whole group into a higher stratum to the level with the already existing groups of this stratum. Accordingly, the downward currents also have two forms: the first consists in the fall of the individual from a higher social position to a lower one, without destroying the original group to which he belonged; another form manifests itself in the degradation of the social group as a whole, in the lowering of its rank against the background of other groups, or in the destruction of its social unity. In the first case, the "fall" reminds us of a person who fell from the ship, in the second - the immersion of the ship itself with all the passengers on board or the shipwreck.

Cases of individual penetration into higher strata or falling from a high social level to a low one are familiar and understandable. They do not need explanation. The second form of social ascent, descent, rise and fall of groups should be considered in more detail.

The following historical examples serve as illustrations. Historians of India's caste society report that the Brahmin caste has not always been in the position of undeniable superiority that it has enjoyed for the past two millennia. In the distant past, the castes of warriors, rulers and kshatriyas were not ranked below the brahmins, they became the highest caste only after a long struggle. If this hypothesis is correct, then the promotion of the rank of the Brahmin caste through all other floors is an example of the second type of social ascent. The entire group rose as a whole. Prior to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, the status of a Christian bishop or Christian clergyman was low among other social ranks of the Roman Empire. In the next few centuries the social position and rank of the Christian church rose. As a consequence of this elevation, members of the clergy also rose to the highest strata of medieval society. Conversely, the decline in the authority of the Christian Church in the last two centuries has led to the lowering of the social ranks of the higher clergy among the other ranks of modern society. The prestige of a pope or a cardinal is still high, but it is undoubtedly lower than it was in the Middle Ages. To hold a high position in the court of the Romanovs or the Habsburgs before the revolution meant to have the highest social rank. The "fall" of dynasties led to the "social decline" of the ranks associated with them. The Bolsheviks in Russia before the revolution did not have any recognized high position. During the revolution, this group overcame a huge social distance and occupied the highest position in Russian society. As a result, all its members were raised to the status previously held by the royal aristocracy. Similar phenomena are observed in economic stratification. So, before the advent of the "oil" or "car" era, being a well-known industrialist in these areas did not mean being an industrial and financial magnate. The wide distribution of industries has made them the most important industrial areas. Accordingly, to be a leading industrialist - an oilman or a motorist - means to be one of the most influential leaders in industry and finance.

2. Intensity (or speed) and generality of vertical social mobility

From a quantitative point of view, it is necessary to distinguish between the intensity and generality of vertical mobility. Under intensity refers to the vertical social distance or the number of layers - economic, professional or political - passed by an individual in his upward or downward movement in a certain period of time.

Under universality vertical mobility refers to the number of individuals who have changed their social position in the vertical direction over a certain period of time. The absolute number of such individuals gives absolute universality vertical mobility in the structure of a given population of the country; the proportion of such individuals to the entire population gives relative universality vertical mobility.

Combining the intensity and relative universality of vertical mobility in a particular social sphere, one can obtain the aggregate indicator of the vertical economic mobility of a given society. Comparing one society with another, or the same society in different periods of its development, one can find out in which of them or in which period the total mobility is higher. The same can be said about the combined indicator of political and professional vertical mobility.

Summary

1. The main forms of individual social mobility and the mobility of social objects are as follows: horizontal and vertical. Vertical mobility exists in the form of updrafts and downdrafts. Both have two varieties: 1) individual penetration and 2) the collective rise or fall of the position of the whole group.

2. According to the degree of movement, it is fair to distinguish between mobile and immobile types of societies.

3. There is hardly a society whose strata are absolutely esoteric.

4. There is hardly a society in which vertical mobility would be free.

5. The intensity and generality of vertical mobility varies from group to group, from one period of time to another (changes in time and space). In the history of social organisms, the rhythms of comparatively mobile and immobile periods are captured.

6. In these changes, there is no constant trend towards either an increase or a decrease in vertical mobility.

7. Although so-called democratic societies are often more fluid than autocratic ones, this rule is not without exceptions.

CHANNELS OF VERTICAL CIRCULATION

Since vertical mobility is present to some degree in any society, and since there must be some "holes", "ladders", "elevators" or "paths" between the layers along which individuals are allowed to move up or down from one layer to another, then It would be legitimate to consider the question of what these channels of social circulation really are. The functions of social circulation are performed by various institutions. Of these, which exist both in different and in the same society, but at different periods of its development, there are always several channels that are most characteristic of this society. The most important of these social institutions are: the army, the church, the school, political, economic and professional organizations ...

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF VERTICAL MOBILITY

First assertion. It is unlikely that societies have ever existed whose social strata were absolutely closed or in which there would be no vertical mobility in its three main forms - economic, political and professional.

Second statement. There has never been a society in which vertical social mobility would be absolutely free, and the transition from one social stratum to another would be carried out without any resistance.

Third assertion. The intensity and generality of vertical social mobility varies from society to society, that is, in space.

Fourth statement. The intensity and generality of vertical mobility - economic, political and professional - fluctuate within the same society at different periods of its history.

Fifth statement. In vertical mobility, in its three main forms, there is no constant direction either towards strengthening or towards weakening its intensity and universality. This assumption is valid for the history of any country, for the history of large social organisms, and, finally, for the entire history of mankind.

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Downward mobility can also cause extreme backfire for individuals and, of course, to an even greater extent than ascending. Social decline breaks primary ties with friends, many relatives, can break families, put up barriers between fathers and children. Take, for example, a young married couple, in which the spouses are equally strongly motivated for mobility, for achievement. If the different abilities of spouses, different conditions and circumstances exalt one of them, the other will experience painful difficulties. Mutual tension and rupture of relations may arise. Statistics show that families often break up for this very reason.

Downward mobility can also cause extremely unpleasant consequences for individuals, and, of course, to an even greater extent than upward mobility. Social decline breaks primary ties with friends, many relatives, can break families, put up barriers between fathers and children. Take, for example, a young married couple, in which the spouses are equally strongly motivated for mobility, for achievement.

Similarly, downward mobility exists in the form of both pushing individual individuals from high social statuses to lower ones, and lowering the social statuses of an entire group. An example of the second form of downward mobility is the decline in the social status of a professional group of engineers that once held very high positions in our society, or the decline in the status of a political party that is losing real power.

Indeed, the market, even in its initial state, raised the requirements for the qualities of both the employer and the employee. Partially affected here and negative factors downward mobility. But the influence of bringing the illusory social status to the real prevails.

Although lowering social status is less common than raising it, downward mobility is still widespread. About 20% of the UK population is affected by intergenerational mobility, although most of these are short social movements. There is also an intrageneration downgrade. It is this type of downward mobility that most often generates psychological problems, as people lose the ability to maintain their usual way of life.

Society can elevate the status of some individuals and lower the status of others. And this is understandable: some individuals who have talent, energy, youth should force out other individuals who do not possess these qualities from the highest statuses. Depending on this, ascending and descending social mobility, or social rise and social decline, are distinguished. The upward currents of professional, economic and political mobility exist in two main forms: as an individual upsurge, or infiltration of individuals from a lower stratum to a higher stratum, and as the creation of new groups of individuals with the inclusion of groups in the upper stratum next to or instead of the existing groups of this stratum [92 , With. Similarly, downward mobility exists in the form of both pushing individual individuals from high social statuses to lower ones, and lowering the social statuses of an entire group. An example of the second form of downward mobility is the decline in the social status of a professional troupe of engineers that once held very high positions in our society, or the decline in the status of a political party that is losing real power.

We single out another mechanism of social stratification, which is associated with a change in a person's position in the system of social statuses - social mobility. At birth, a person receives the social status of his parents, the so-called ascriptive, or prescribed, status. Parents, relatives and people close to the family pass on to the child those norms of behavior, ideas about what is due and prestigious that prevail in their environment. However, during the active period of his activity, a person may not be satisfied with his position in this layer, claim and achieve more. In the latter case, he acquires an attainable status. If a person's status is changed to a more prestigious, better one, then we can say that upward mobility has taken place. However, as a result of life's cataclysms (loss of work, illness, etc.), a person can also move to a lower status group - this triggers downward mobility. Researchers have a system of statistical procedures and indicators that allow them to identify different types social mobility (intergenerational, professional, etc.), which generally allows us to analyze various types of population movement.

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