Social stratification and intergenerational mobility

I study both objective patterns of intergenerational mobility — using register data and large-scale surveys — and subjective mobility, examining how people perceive their own position relative to their parents. Working with John Goldthorpe and Erzsébet Bukodi at Oxford, I demonstrated the existence of both “glass floors” and “glass ceilings” in British social mobility, showing how social origins have direct effects on mobility chances beyond those mediated by education. I have also investigated how intergenerational educational mobility relates to depressive symptoms, finding that men who experience downward mobility relative to their parents suffer particularly severe psychological distress.

More recently, I have studied how perceptions of mobility differ from actual trajectories, and how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine altered perceived intergenerational mobility across Europe.

Key publications