Social mobility

Definition

Social mobility in plain English

Social mobility is about whether people can move up, down, or sideways in society's ranking of wealth and status — like changing seats in a stadium where some seats are far better than others. 'Intergenerational' means comparing across generations (are you better off than your parents were?), while 'intragenerational' means change within one person's own lifetime (did you rise from a low-paying job to a high-paying one?). 'Upward' is climbing to a better position, 'downward' is slipping to a worse one, and 'horizontal' is switching to a different job at roughly the same level. It matters because how easily people can move tells you how fair and open a society really is.

Learn these first

• Demographic transition
• Social institutions

Related MCAT terms

• Absolute threshold
• Big Five personality (OCEAN)
• Classical conditioning
• Cognitive dissonance
• Demographic transition
• Endocrine hormones (key)
• Erikson's psychosocial stages
• Fundamental attribution error
• Health disparities
• Heuristic