Sociology I / Class, Mobility and Its Myths
Practice question · Fill in the blanks

Complete the vocabulary of mobility analysis.

The proportion of people who end in a class different from their origin is called ______ mobility. The comparative chance of people from two different origins reaching the same destination is called ______ mobility, and it is usually expressed as an ______ ratio. Reading a mobility table across the rows gives the ______ percentages from each origin.

Word bank: absolute · relative · odds · outflow · inflow · structural

Hints
  1. One measure counts movers and the other compares chances.
  2. Reading across a row starts from an origin and asks where those people went.
Show the answer

The proportion of people who end in a class different from their origin is called absolute mobility. The comparative chance of people from two different origins reaching the same destination is called relative mobility, and it is usually expressed as an odds ratio. Reading a mobility table across the rows gives the outflow percentages from each origin.

Why

The row and column directions answer different questions and are constantly confused in public argument. Outflow asks where people of a given origin ended up; inflow asks where the people now in a given destination came from. A destination class can be full of people from humble origins simply because humble origins were common.

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