Male Occupations and Career Mobility

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 principally explores the extent to which sons entered the same careers as their fathers. Perhaps half the cohort did not come from a professional family but were the sons of merchants, tradesmen, and artisans. Whatever their background or wealth, there is little sign that the cohort viewed non-professional careers with disdain. Only a small minority of the cohort’s sons entered exactly the same profession as their fathers and many moved into business and trade. Some members of the cohort, moreover, lacked the means to put their sons in a profession even if they had wanted to: a handful of their sons ended up as factory workers and miners. There was the same limited evidence of occupational continuity in the case of the grandsons. What is particularly striking is that if a cohort son made a career outside the professions, there was virtually no chance that one of his sons would become a professional.