Last Tuesday, January 23rd, professor Gosta Esping Andersen held a demosoc seminar titled: "Abilities and Mobility"

Room: 20.137 (ed. Jaume I)
Time: 12.00 - 13.00 h

Abstract

Exploiting the recent PIACC data, we examine both upward and downward social mobility within 21 advanced nations. Our aim is to identify the degree of meritocratic selection by identifying the relative influence of social origin versus individual cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We pay particular attention to the possibility of skills compensation— social skills may compensate for weak cognitive abilities, or vice-versa – and skills combination, e.g. what is the added effect of commanding strong skills on both counts? This is, as far as we know, the first time mobility research has examined such skills-compensatory behavior. In line with previous research we, too, uncover a significantly more egalitarian mobility pattern in the Nordic countries. This however obtains also for Canada and the Netherlands. A unique feature of Scandinavia is its asymmetric mobility pattern: significant upward mobility for those with low-SES origin, but surprisingly little downward mobility among those with high-SES origins. We test whether this pattern is due to skills compensation.