Executive Leadership: An Appraisal of a Manager in Action.

TLDR: For example, this paper defined social distance mobility as the ratio between actual mobility and the amount of mobility one would expect if no relation existed between the son's occupational class and that of his father, the expected mobility would reflect only the availability factors influencing movement.

Abstract: dom to move within the limits set by demand. This is accomplished simply by defining social distance mobility of father-son occupations as total mobility divided by the demand factor. By defining social distance mobility as the ratio between actual mobility and the amount of mobility one would expect if no relation existed between the son's occupational class and that of his father, the expected mobility would reflect only the availability factors influencing movement. The data used in the research are taken from twenty thousand marriage license applications in Indianapolis. Occupation of the male applicant and his father was required in both time periods. These data gave a reasonably accurate picture of intergenerational movement when the formula used here is applied. Having taken account of the factor of availability of different ypes of occupations, the author then explored in turn the relative importance of ethnic, racial, and age factors. Mobility rates into and out of each occupational situation are given. No appreciable differences turned up in the amount and destination of occupational movement experienced by sons of foreign-born and native-born fathers in 1910. But in 1940 it was revealed that sons of foreign-born fathers moved into a larger proportion of positions in professional and proprietor occupations. Fewer were disposed to become manual workers than were sons of native-born fathers. If these same observations can be verified in other community studies where ethnic backgrounds are not predominantly North European, as in the case of Indianapolis, then a profound change in a popular assumption is warranted. But even the author hedges on making this kind of generalization. The results of the comparison of race with occupational mobility are not unexpected. Negroes became laborers three times as often as expected on the basis of the number of laboring jobs available in the total occupational structure in the 1940 period. The likelihood of Negroes becoming laborers did not depend upon their father's occupation.... From all occupational origins, Negroes were absorbed into the occupational structure only at those positions which were least economically and socially rewarding.