Inadequate Analysis of Social Mobility

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Social Mobility Index, which measures intergenerational social mobility in 82 countries, ranked India 76th in its Global Social Mobility report. Studying social mobility has been a difficult task for social scientists, let alone economists, who generally define it as the ability (of individuals/groups) to move upward or downward in a status based on wealth, occupation, education, or some other social variables over their lifetime or even across generations.

Urbanisation in India, which has resulted in large-scale rural-to-urban mig­ration, owing mostly to the agricultural crisis and large-scale demand for low-wage casual workers, has been vie­wed as an essential link in the process of gaining social mobility. However, there are differing views on the urbanisation–social mobility link. While some see urbanisation as a guaranteed social elevator, some see as repositories of ­unfree labour for capitalist enterprises.