---
title: "Intergenerational Mobility | Intro to Sociology"
description: "Intergenerational mobility is the change in social class or income across generations, showing how much your status differs from your parents' in sociology."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/intro-to-sociology/key-terms/intergenerational-mobility"
type: "key-term"
subject: "Intro to Sociology"
unit: "Unit 9"
---

# Intergenerational Mobility | Intro to Sociology

## Definition

Intergenerational mobility is the movement of people or families between socioeconomic positions across generations. In Intro to Sociology, it shows how much your status changes compared with your parents or grandparents.

## What It Is

Intergenerational mobility is the pattern of movement between social classes across generations in Intro to Sociology. You are not just asking whether one person got a better job than another person, you are asking whether a child ends up with a different socioeconomic status than the family they were born into.

Sociologists use it to measure how open or closed a society is. If people regularly move into higher or lower class positions than their parents, that society has more mobility. If most people stay in the same class as their family, the society is more rigid and class background matters a lot more.

This term is usually discussed alongside socioeconomic status, because mobility can involve changes in income, education, and occupation. A student whose parents worked low-wage service jobs but later becomes a doctor has experienced upward intergenerational mobility. Someone whose family once had stable middle-class jobs but later falls into unemployment or long-term debt may experience downward mobility.

In sociology, the term is not only about personal success or failure. It is about structure. Education access, neighborhood quality, discrimination, social networks, and family wealth can all shape whether mobility happens. That is why sociologists look beyond individual effort and ask what social conditions make it easier for some groups to move and harder for others.

A common mistake is mixing this up with intragenerational mobility. Intergenerational mobility compares your position to your family across generations. Intragenerational mobility tracks movement during one person's own life. One looks at family change over time, the other looks at career and class change within a single lifetime.

## Why It Matters

Intergenerational mobility shows how sociologists judge inequality in the United States and other societies. If mobility is low, then family background is doing a lot of the work in shaping who gets education, good jobs, and security. That points you toward questions about social stratification, class reproduction, and unequal access to resources.

It also connects directly to debates about meritocracy. A society can claim that hard work pays off, but if children from wealthier families have far more advantages, then the playing field is not equal. Sociologists use mobility data to test whether opportunity is actually open or whether class tends to stay locked in place.

This term also gives you a way to interpret policy and social patterns. Education funding, neighborhood segregation, inherited wealth, and labor market inequality all show up here. When a prompt describes a family background, a student job path, or a class comparison, intergenerational mobility is often the lens that turns the story into sociology instead of just biography.

## Connections

### Social Mobility

Social mobility is the broader category for movement up or down the class structure. Intergenerational mobility is one type of social mobility because it focuses on change between parents and children, not just movement within one person's life. If a question asks about class change in general, think social mobility first. If it compares someone to their family background, think intergenerational mobility.

### [Intragenerational Mobility](/intro-to-sociology/key-terms/intragenerational-mobility)

Intragenerational mobility tracks changes in a person's status over their own lifetime, such as starting in a low-wage job and later moving into management. Intergenerational mobility compares two generations, like a child and their parents. The difference matters on quizzes and essays because both are about movement, but they measure different time scales.

### [Generational Wealth](/intro-to-sociology/key-terms/generational-wealth)

Generational wealth helps explain why intergenerational mobility is often uneven. Families who pass down money, property, and financial support can give children a head start in education, housing, and career choices. That means mobility is not only about individual effort, it is also shaped by what families already have when a child enters adulthood.

### [Socioeconomic Status (SES)](/intro-to-sociology/key-terms/socioeconomic-status-ses)

Socioeconomic status is the mix of income, education, and occupation that sociologists use to place people in a class position. Intergenerational mobility measures whether SES changes from one generation to the next. When you analyze a case, SES tells you the starting and ending points, while mobility tells you the direction of change.

## On the AP Exam

A quiz question may give you a family story and ask whether it shows intergenerational mobility, and if so, whether it is upward or downward. In a short essay, you might use the term to explain why two people with different family backgrounds have different outcomes even when they work hard.

You can also use it to read graphs or tables that compare parents' income, education, or occupation with their children's. If a prompt asks about social stratification in the United States, this term often fits when the evidence is about class movement across generations. On a discussion board or written response, connect it to education, wealth, or inequality instead of treating it like a personal success story.

## intergenerational mobility vs Intragenerational Mobility

Intergenerational mobility compares class position across generations, such as parents and children. Intragenerational mobility compares a person's status at different points in their own life. If the prompt is about family background, use intergenerational mobility. If it is about one person's career path over time, use intragenerational mobility.

## Key Takeaways

- Intergenerational mobility measures how much a person's social class differs from their parents' or grandparents' class position.
- High mobility means family background matters less, while low mobility means class tends to reproduce itself across generations.
- Sociologists connect mobility to education, wealth, discrimination, neighborhood opportunity, and access to networks.
- This term is one way to judge how open or unequal a society is, especially when discussing meritocracy and social stratification.
- Do not confuse it with intragenerational mobility, which tracks change within one person's lifetime.

## FAQs

### What is intergenerational mobility in Intro to Sociology?

It is the movement of people or families between socioeconomic positions from one generation to the next. Sociologists use it to see whether children end up in similar, higher, or lower class positions than their parents. The term is a big part of social stratification because it shows how fixed or flexible class boundaries are.

### What is the difference between intergenerational and intragenerational mobility?

Intergenerational mobility compares your status to your parents' or grandparents' status. Intragenerational mobility looks at movement during your own life, like starting in one job and later moving into a different class position. The difference is about time scale: family change versus personal career change.

### What is an example of intergenerational mobility?

If your grandparents were farm workers, your parents worked retail, and you become a lawyer or engineer, that is upward intergenerational mobility. If a family loses stable middle-class income because of layoffs or deindustrialization, that can be downward mobility. Sociologists use examples like these to show how class is reproduced or changed over time.

### Why do sociologists study intergenerational mobility?

They study it to see whether society offers real equality of opportunity. Mobility patterns reveal how much education, wealth, and social networks shape life chances. When mobility is low, it suggests that class background is doing more to determine outcomes than talent or effort alone.

## Related Study Guides

- [9.2 Social Stratification and Mobility in the United States](/intro-to-sociology/unit-9/2-social-stratification-mobility-united-states/study-guide/pe3AnDl7nyfW74pS)
- [9.4 Theoretical Perspectives on Social Stratification](/intro-to-sociology/unit-9/4-theoretical-perspectives-social-stratification/study-guide/tbMOuQ08OnpHWv2D)

## About This Document

Canonical Fiveable pages are available as Markdown at the same path plus `.md`.

- [llms.txt](https://fiveable.me/llms.txt): index of Fiveable's sections and URL patterns
- [llms-full.txt](https://fiveable.me/llms-full.txt): complete subject and unit listing
- [MCP server](https://fiveable.me/mcp): call Fiveable as tools instead of fetching pages (`https://fiveable.me/api/mcp`)
- [MCP server for AP teachers](https://fiveable.me/mcp/teachers): a teacher's classes, assignments and AP-rubric grading (`https://fiveable.me/api/mcp/teacher`)

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