Social class mobility in the early modern Europe: a first international comparison

The questions we begin in this paper to seek to answer are: (a) How did total intergenerational social class mobility change over time in pre-industrial? (b) Are there variations in total intergenerational social class mobility between countries and regions? We analyzed 50.000 vital registers for 3 countries on total, upward, downward and sectorial mobility. In the country for which we presently arguably have the best data, France, the rate of intergenerational mobility increased, albeit irregularly from the 1720s until 1850 (actually until the end of the twentieth century, as we showed in another stud). For the German and Swedish places, no clear picture can yet be observed: total mobility trajectories vary among places and over time, as do upward and downward mobility. Sweden stands out by a relatively high rate of downward mobility, mostly consisting of farmers’ sons becoming farm laborers. More than expected, however, sons with fathers from outside the farming class succeeded in becoming a farmer. Barriers between the sectors seem to have been weak in Sweden.We can draw two broad conclusions. The first is that pre-modern social class structures were not as stable as either modernization or status maintenance theories claim. The second is that in the case of France, for which we have excellent long-term records, even the major shock of the French Revolution and its aftermath did not cause an observable Sorokin effect for men.