Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

Social mobility refers to the ability of individuals or groups to move within a social hierarchy, and in the context of a postindustrial society, this phenomenon has been significantly influenced by economic shifts. As developed nations transition from manufacturing-based economies to service-oriented ones, the nature and opportunities for social mobility are changing. The postindustrial era is marked by the rise of multinational corporations, globalization, and advancements in technology, resulting in a workforce that increasingly requires specialized education and skills, particularly in fields like healthcare, information technology, and finance.

In this new environment, individuals with advanced qualifications are positioned at the top of the social strata, while those lacking critical skills may find themselves relegated to lower-status jobs, often with diminished prospects for upward advancement. The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to countries with cheaper labor has also played a role in creating social disparities, as local workers may struggle to compete in a global job market. Consequently, education has become a vital tool for enhancing social mobility, as it equips individuals with the necessary skills to thrive in a competitive service economy. However, the benefits of educational initiatives have not been uniformly accessible, contributing to a growing divide between upper and lower social classes. Overall, the dynamics of social mobility in postindustrial societies reflect broader economic transformations that continue to shape social structures worldwide.

Published in: 2021

By: Auerbach, Michael P.

Subject Terms

Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

As the economies of developed nations have changed over the past few decades, so too have their labor bases. Globalization has ushered in changes in technology and labor migration that have changed the landscape of economic output. As the post-industrial era is beginning, a change in the nature of social mobility is also occurring. This paper will assess the ways in which social mobility has changed in developed nations as the world economy has become more interconnected, or globalized.

Keywords Manufacturing Industry; Multinational Corporation; Outsourcing; Service Industry; Social Mobility; Stratification

Overview

In 1992, one of the world's largest and most well-known companies was on the ropes. Hemorrhaging money, laying off thousands of workers, and rapidly losing business to its competition, IBM had no strong leadership, long-term goals, or strategies. When Louis Gerstner arrived as chairman in the early 1990s, IBM was considering splitting into smaller, independent units, signaling an end to the company's long, storied history. Gerstner, however, had other plans. One of his first acts as chairman was to undertake an extensive tour through the company, soliciting thoughts and ideas not just from employees but from clients as well. When asked by one of his colleagues for his vision of IBM, Gerstner replied somewhat flippantly, "The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision" (anecdotage.com, 2008).

Gerstner famously led IBM, an icon of the industrial age, into the twenty-first century with a combination of entrepreneurial flexibility and open-mindedness. His accomplishments with the company in the face of a changing business environment are the stuff of legend. In many ways, IBM's reemergence coincided with the Western world's transition from an industrial and manufacturing economy into an economy of service and information. Sputtering machine plants and factories are not nearly as prevalent as they once were in the United States, as blue-collar jobs have replaced by web-commerce, consultancies, and other white-collar jobs. The industrialized world has entered the "post-industrial" era.

As the post-industrial era is beginning, a change in the nature of social mobility is also occurring. This paper will assess the ways in which social mobility has changed in developed nations over the past few decades. By casting a light on the changes in how people pursue upward mobility in this new era, it will seek to understand how these societies are transforming along with the new political economy of the twenty-first century.

Further Insights

The Post-Industrial Era

After two centuries of innovations in manufacturing productivity, the economies of the developed world has shifted dramatically. Since the mid-eighteenth century, every European and North American economic infrastructure has been industrialized, and the twentieth century as seen the Eastern Asian and Indian economies following suit. Innovations as the cotton gin, the steam engine, vulcanized rubber, automobiles, and airplanes have given billions of people jobs in a variety of manufacturing industries.

In the late twentieth century, however, Western economies began to change and become more global. Multinational corporations could now reach virtually every corner of the world, and the spread of the Internet gave rise to a new way of doing business: e-commerce. Because of these changes, service industries like research and development, financial services, software design, and cellular communications have become the dominant economic drivers of the Western world (Hermelin, 2007).

Of course, the need for large manufacturing plants and factories has not diminished. International commerce means that a corporation may maintain its headquarters in one country, while large-scale plants may operate in another country where labor is cheaper and the cost of real estate is low. This practice, known as "outsourcing," has contributed both to business development (as corporations save on operating costs by running factories in less-developed countries) and to local, often impoverished societies (whose labor bases often welcome the opportunity to go to work). In addition, fears that government intervention can hinder successful business has led the post-industrial world to be characterized by a free-enterprise approach in which government controls are removed and the industries that once made significant contributions to the economy are increasingly privatized.

Indeed, the world of the twenty-first century is markedly different from the world of only a few decades ago. The industrialized nations of the world are rapidly transitioning from a manufacturing base to a service industry base. Formerly less-developed nations (known as "LDCs") are becoming heavily manufacturing-oriented, and the majority of their industrial bases now comprise factories and assembly plants.

It is difficult to encapsulate or predict the effects the post-industrial era will have. Still, it cannot be dismissed that this evolving order will have an impact on humanity for generations to come. These political and economic changes are already having strong impacts on society.

The Worker & the New Order

This paper seeks to focus on the sociological aspects of the post-industrial era. However, it cannot be denied that social behavior in this period is closely linked with the economy. In most modern societies, one's occupation is closely linked to one's social status, and since economic changes can have a severe impact on one's occupation they can also impact one's status.

Post-industrialism has significantly changed society due in part to the shift toward a service-based economy. As the way the industrialized world does business changes, so too does the face of the worker. As US industries becomes more specialized and technological, workers must be more educated and more skilled. Careers in medical research, computer science, web marketing, and international business all call for advanced degrees and specialized training. The individuals who have the education and skills to hold these positions are now considered to occupy the top social stratum. Those who are less skilled, however, have fewer opportunities to gain a higher status and may even be pushed down into a lower status. Thus, social status is becoming increasingly dependent on an individual's occupation and his or her skill level (Sarossy, 1996).

In light of this fact, stratification does not necessarily occur on a national societal level - rather, it occurs on an international level. The simple reason for this trend is that people go to where the jobs are: if the job in question, such as a manufacturing position, is sent overseas to a less-industrialized nation, then the individual must either go along with it, or become unemployed.

Post-Soviet Russia

In the case of Russia, the post-industrial world has created a new system of social stratification. Previously, the heavily industrialized Soviet Union used its satellites states, such as Ukraine and the Baltic states, as bases for major manufacturing operations. When the USSR dissolved, so too did the countless factories that it had built in those countries. When these industrial complexes closed their doors, thousands of workers lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, although the post-industrial era has been increasingly beneficial for many Russian citizens, there is still a need for less-skilled workers in plants and lower-paying jobs. Many of those who are taking these jobs are immigrants from former Soviet countries. Hence, Russian society is experiencing a new form of stratification, with immigrants from such former Soviet satellites as Tajikistan and Azerbaijan entering Russian society as minority groups. Lacking the skills and education necessary to move into higher social strata, these immigrants have very little social mobility. Exacerbating matters is the fact that these extraterritorial workers are being discriminated against by Russian citizens who are either on the same socio-economic level or belong to strata (Mukomel, 2007). This example raises an important point about social mobility as a whole: as upper and lower social strata become increasingly divergent in the post-industrial era, upward social mobility means not only escape from financial hardship, it can also mean an escape from being the target of prejudice.

The Shrinking Middle

The Russian example casts an interesting light on the social changes brought about by post-industrialism. In the industrial era, most societies had three distinct social and economic classes, once again largely defined by the individual's occupation. Individuals in the lower classes usually had few skills or professional qualifications, little education, limited job growth, and infrequent upward mobility. Individuals in the upper class tended to be well-trained and well-educated, occupy prestigious positions, and have a high degree of financial security.

These two classes or strata are, to be sure, polar opposites both in terms of economics and social groupings. The middle class is a much more nebulous concept, however. Members of the middle class typically have at least some postsecondary education, hold white collar jobs, and enjoy a reasonable measure of financial security. Often the target of social policy analysis due to its multifarious and complex composition, this stratum's social mobility has been rendered even more difficult to gauge because of the economic changes brought on by post-industrialism.

This difficulty is created from the fact that the middle class is currently in the midst of two major trends. The first is that middle classes of post-industrial societies are becoming increasingly educated. With many political figures and social policymakers committed to supporting the middle class through scholarships, grants, and other forms of financial aid, a larger percentage of the class is receiving a post-secondary education. Such increases in education mean that the middle class is becoming a much more prominent part of society, and one with a much high degree of social mobility (Van de Werfhorst & de Graaf, 2004).

Secondly, many of the jobs that once provided a stable, middle class income have been eliminated as companies outsource them to other countries with lower labor costs. As a result, education has become even more important in the service economy for those seeking to maintain a middle-class lifestyle or move into an even higher social stratum. With a shift toward a postindustrial service economy, members of the middle-class must either take advantage of educational opportunities, or find themselves qualified for only low-paying service sector jobs and be forced into a lower stratum.

One result of this shrinkage is that the upper and lower classes are becoming increasingly polarized (Simmie & Brady, 1989). The political and social policies designed to help members of the middle class attain a postsecondary education have, by and large, failed to reach members of the lower classes. With lower classes at a disadvantage, therefore, the gap between them and the upper classes has widened (Haycock and Gerald, 2007).

This gap, which sociologists believe be fostered by the post-industrial service economy, has been well-documented. Sociologists have theorized in great numbers that post-industrial economies experience a relatively high rate of social inequality because all but the lowest paying service jobs require knowledge-intensive employees. As the labor-intensive manufacturing jobs which once supported the middle class are outsourced, industrial workers who lack the education necessary to hold a well-paying service job are being forced to fill the low wage service sector jobs (Moller & Rubin, 2004).

A Change in the Economy, a Change in the Worker

It goes without saying that the service industry is a different animal from the manufacturing industry. This essay has already described one major difference in employment requirements: education and training. Information technology, financial consultancy, and other service sectors call for more educated and specialized vocationally-trained individuals than do manufacturers, which tend to seek those with more limited training.

However, institutional and vocational education does not constitute the entirety of the service industry's demand. The industry also demands that its workers have what are called "soft skills," or desirable interpersonal skills and personal qualities. Workers in this arena must be able to perform a task not as part of a daily quota, but as a response to a client's demand. Meeting these demands and fostering positive relationships with clients requires workers to have strong interpersonal, conflict resolution, and communication skills. In the ongoing transition from industrial to post-industrial economic regimes, individuals who seek to achieve upward social mobility by entering into service industry employment must develop and improve upon these personal qualities. Successful transition into this sector, therefore, is dependent on how well an individual is able to adapt his or her personal qualities to his or her career (Bulan, Erickson & Wharton, 1997).

In many cases, societies that have been operating in one industry sector find that dramatic change to another industry is extremely difficult to foster. A recent study compared the societies and economies of two of the fastest growing countries in the world: China and India ("Sweatshops and Technocoolies," 2005). Each country has an economy that is growing exponentially, and doing so through the same service industries that developed nations are fostering. Their methods of entering the post-industrial era, however, create an interesting illustration of the way in which the transition from manufacturing-based economic infrastructures to service-based economies involve the labor force in a manner that will ultimately comprise their engines ("Sweatshops and Technocoolies," 2005).

Prior to their respective industrializations, both India and China were agrarian societies: their citizens spent the majority of their lives working in the fields. For both societies, the change from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy was not very difficult - neither economy requires workers to engage in comprehensive education or extensive training regimens. However, both countries' efforts to develop service sectors have proved problematic. In China's case, society has been moving upward at a slow, deliberate pace, a move which many observers criticize as too time-consuming. In India, people are being encouraged to move upward toward the service sector as well, but at a far quicker pace. The result for the latter country is that the service industry is but a small part of that country's economy (only about 4% of the country's gross domestic product), despite a worldwide reputation as an exporter of information technology and call center outsourcing services ("Sweatshops and Technocoolies," 2005).

Discourse

This paper has thus far paid considerable attention to the economic changes brought about by post-industrialism, as well as how these changes have impacted individuals who seek to move upward into a higher social and economic stratum within its parameters. There is another, critical component of this discussion as it pertains to social mobility, one that becomes manifest in the examples of India and China just provided: how an individual is able to make the upward transition when the economy has shifted from a manufacturing- to a service-based system.

There are a wide range of activities in which one may engage in order to move into a higher social stratum. Among them are moving to an area conducive to gainful employment, seeking out financial assistance programs, and utilizing available public and private resources. In the post-industrial environment, however, one of the most vital components applicable to social mobility is education.

As stated earlier, however, education is not simply a matter of coursework. In many countries, baccalaureate-level education stresses the basic skills - reading, writing, and mathematics - necessary to pass performance examinations in order to acquire a degree. These skills are, of course, invaluable for any individual, but the service industry also seeks other talents. Among these talents are creativity, risk-taking, leadership, teamwork, and team-building. Each of these less-tangible professional traits can be learned in business courses, but likely need to be acquired through additional training courses. If candidates do not have such "outside of the box" skills, they may not be considered viable candidates for employment by the service sector, particularly by a multinational corporation (Fan, 2006).

To offset this issue, many multinational corporations have created training courses known as "corporate universities," in which matriculates can acquire these and other skills relevant to the goals and philosophies of the company in question. In China, for example, Motorola, Siemens, Procter and Gamble, and Ericsson all have corporate universities. Louis Gerstner's IBM also has an online training program. Each of these training resources help individuals obtain the professional skills and personal characteristics that will help them earn higher salaries and move into higher social strata. Such training also creates loyal, long-term employees for the corporation. In an era of shifting economic and social priorities, stability is key both for employers and the individuals they hire.

Conclusions

Louis Gerstner was correct to refute the need for an inflexible perspective about IBM's direction in 1992. The post-industrial era was taking hold, and IBM, like every other major business, needed to assess the forces driving the changes that were taking place. Indeed, IBM is once again a major leader in the global, post-industrial economy.

The switch from a heavily-regulated manufacturing base to a free-market, service base has had profound impacts not just on economies, but also on the societies in which they operate. This paper has shed light on the many ways that individual social mobility can and does occur in this new environment, as well as the ways in which social groups and strata have been adversely impacted.

Terms & Concepts

Manufacturing Industry: Economic sector that produces physical goods for market sales.

Multinational Corporation: Business that conducts operations and in other countries in addition to its home nation.

Outsourcing: Business practice that entails moving operations to other countries to save costs and staffing expenses.

Service Industry: Business sector that provides consultative, high-technology, financial advising, or other, un-manufactured products.

Social Mobility: Movement between social strata based on relative positions with other individuals and social groups.

Stratification: The creation of a hierarchical system of social classes within a society.

Bibliography

Bulan, H. F., Erickson, R. J., & Wharton, A. S. (1997). Doing for others on the job. Social Problems, 44, 235-256. Retrieved April 3, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=9707156638&site=ehost-live

Classic Gerstner. (2008). Retrieved March 31, 2008 from http://anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=14578.

Fan, Ke. (2006). How can multinational corporations retain their employees in China? CAHRS (Cornell University) Working Paper Series. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=cahrswp.

Halsey, A. H. (2013). Reflections on education and social mobility. British Journal Of Sociology Of Education, 34(5/6), 644-659. doi:10.1080/01425692.2013.816034 Retrieved October 30, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=90216453&site=ehost-live

Haycock, K. &Gerald, D. (2007). Trend: Shrinking opportunity. Connection: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education, 21 , 15-16. Retrieved April 2, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24839389&site=ehost-live

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Moller, S. &Rubin, B. (2004). Jobs and income: Wages in a post-industrial economy. Conference Papers - American Sociological Association. Retrieved April 3, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=15931576&site=ehost-live

Mukomel, V. (2007). Economic and social impact of migration on the recipient society: The case of Russia. Conference Papers - International Studies Association. Retrieved April 2, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=26958386&site=ehost-live

Sarossy, G. (2006). Social mobility in a post-industrial society. Statistical Journal of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, 13 , 233-243. Retrieved April 1, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9703061576&site=ehost-live

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Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

On this Page

Subject Terms

Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

Overview

Further Insights

The Post-Industrial Era

The Worker & the New Order

Post-Soviet Russia

The Shrinking Middle

A Change in the Economy, a Change in the Worker

Discourse

Conclusions

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

Suggested Reading

Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

On this Page

Subject Terms

Social Mobility and the Postindustrial Society

Social Mobility & the Postindustrial Society

Overview

Further Insights

The Post-Industrial Era

The Worker & the New Order

Post-Soviet Russia

The Shrinking Middle

A Change in the Economy, a Change in the Worker

Discourse

Fostering Social Mobility in the Post-Industrial System

Conclusions

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

Suggested Reading