Trajectory of Intra-generational and Inter-generational Social Mobility: The Case of Ankara

Abstract

The empirical studies measuring social mobility dynamics in Western contexts dray, on nationally representative datasets. However, at the time of this presented research was designed, such a representative study was not conducted in "turkey. This paper will fill a gap in Turkish stratification literature by using a data that represents the capital city, Ankara. It aims to (1) identify the indicators that demarcate socio-economic status groups and (2) to discover the patterns of social mobility across these S.E.S groups. The survey questions were designed to collect information on three generations (individual-father/mother grandmother/grandfather). The analysis suggests that the mobility trajectories are deeply influenced by the structural changes that took place throughout "turkey's modernization period. Moreover, it reveals that the mobility patterns exhibit the character of "absolute mobility," rather than "relative mobility" Thirdly, the trajectories of the social mobility in Turkey are very much gendered. The paper closes by discussing the significance of the findings in relation to the literature on Anglo-Saxon mobility dynamics and Turkish modernization.