micro

Social stratification is a characteristic of all society. We have also seen that classes and individuals are rated high or low on the basis of characteristics possessed by them according to the social value scale. Any change in the value scale or any change in the characteristics results in a change in the status of different classes. Thus different occupations are held in different degrees of esteem in different societies or within the society at different times, The members of the priestly class were at one time rated higher than the members of the other classes in India. But today it is not so. A doctor or engineer enjoys greater-prestige than a priest. Likewise if a person becomes a minister from an ordinary shopkeeper, his status is also enhanced. On the other hand, if the minister loses his job and comes to his old shop, the status enjoyed by him as a minister is lost. Thus it is seen that people in society continue to move up and down in the status scale. This movement is called social mobility. Mobility is to be distinguished from migration which is a movement in geographical space. Mobility has been classified as ‘Horizontal Mobility’ and ‘Vertical Mobility’. Horizontal Mobility refers to change of residence of job without status change, such as a teacher’s leaving one school to work in another or even in a factory as a Welfare Officer. “Vertical Mobility” refers to movement in any or all of the three areas of living class, occupation and power. An individual's mobility, up or down is a measurement of how is achieved status compares with his ascribed status. Social change is natural phenomenon and the moment there is also social mobility. Probably no society absolutely forbids social mobility and no society is immobile. If, for example, we wished to have each caste occupying the same status generation after generation on a uniform rate of population replacement would be necessary in every caste. But as the law of nature is, some castes expand in...