The influence of education and work experience on social mobility: a study of the cohorts born in Spain between 1926 and 1981

Abstract

The article provides the results of a research project on the influence that education and work experience have had on intergenerational social mobility in Spain, following the traditional analyses of mobility based on the OED (origin, education, and destination) triangle. The explanatory mechanisms of social fluidity (Breen, 2010) have been analysed by applying a new methodological approach that took into account cohort, period, and age (Vallet, 2020). The results are remarkable and show that, in addition to the influence of educational expansion and the reduced direct effect of class origins to explain the increase in social fluidity in Spain, it is important to consider the additional effect of work history, and therefore, of intragenerational dynamics.