Sources of sibling similarity : Status attainment in the Netherlands during modernization

Abstract

An old Dutch proverb says, “If you’re born a nickel, you’ll never become a dime,” meaning it is difficult to escape the social class into which you are born. The fact that siblings often attain a similar occupational status shows that there is at least some truth in this. A classic sociological theory—modernization theory—claims that while family origin largely determined status attainment in traditional societies, modernization processes such as industrialization and educational expansion have increased the scope for social mobility. In the present study, Antonie Knigge has designed an original way to test whether this claim is true. He has used digitized information from Dutch marriage certificates from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This has allowed him to measure lack of social mobility not only with the conventional indicator, the similarity in occupational status between parents and children, but also with a more encompassing indicator, the similarity of occupational status between siblings. Moreover, for each municipality in each year he has measured six modernization processes (industrialization, educational expansion, urbanization, geographic mobility, mass transportation, and mass communication). Results of multilevel regression models show that social mobility did indeed increase in the period in which the Netherlands transitioned from a traditional to a more modern society. However, the results also indicate that the modernization processes cannot fully explain this decrease in sibling similarity. In fact, most of the modernization processes tend to increase the similarity in status between siblings. Using a theoretical model that simulates competition for status in the labor market, the author argues that to understand patterns in social mobility many aspects need to be considered, including societal inequality, inequality within families, and the role of extended family members. By investigating these sources of sibling similarity, this book offers new insights into the status attainment process in general, and into the different ways it may be affected by modernization in particular.