Changes in status attainment in Hungary between 1910 and 1989: trendless fluctuation or systematic change?

Abstract

This article addresses the effects of economic and political change on social mobility in Hungary between 1910 and 1989 by investigating whether the effects of family background on schooling and the effects of family background and schooling on first occupation vary between periods in Hungary’s twentieth-century history. For this purpose, we distinguish five periods: the long-lasting Depression (1910 to 1933), the period around the Second World War (1934 to 1948), the long 1950s (1949 to 1967), the period of reform socialism (1968 to 1982), and the decline of socialism (1983 to 1989). Using large-scale datasets from 1973, 1983, 1992 and 1993, we are able to investigate developments in the parameters of the status attainment model for about 75,000 men and women. We use spline regressions to find out whether trends in the effects vary between periods. Linear secular trends in the effects of family background and schooling do not predominate; spline models reveal discontinuities between periods. On the other hand, a trend from ascription to achievement both for men and women can be observed. In contrast to the general assumption, the most important deviation from the general trend has taken place in the years before the communist take-over.