Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The aims and objectives of this project were : to examine the relationship between, one the one hand, social mobility and on the other, political preferences, attitudes and behaviour within the context of Northern Ireland, a society which is deeply divided on politico-religious backgrounds. In particular, the aim was to determine the degree to which those who are socially mobile display patterns of political preferences, attitudes or behaviour (in specific areas) which are distinctively different from those characteristic of their class of origin or class of destination; to advance our understanding of whether social mobility might lead to change in political attitudes and constitutional aspirations in Northern Ireland, as is widely believed; to advance the methodological analysis within the 'mobility effects' literature by (i) addressing, within the Sobel (1981) framework, the issue of measurement error; (ii) extending the model to take into account intra-generational, as well as extra-generational, mobility; to construct a social mobility dataset for Northern Ireland which will permit further research on social mobility in at least three areas, (i) an examination of the changes in the Northern Ireland male mobility regime over the period 1973 to 1995. This will be based on a comparison with 1973 mobility data; (ii) a cross-national study of changes in the male mobility regime over the same period in comparison with the Republic of Ireland; (iii) the first examination of female mobility patterns In Northern Ireland.
Main Topics:
This dataset provides information on the following areas, in respect of the sampled respondents : demographics of the household; growing up (parents' occupation, schools attended, country of birth); education; current employment and employment history; partner's education and employment; religious activities; social attitudes and voting behaviour; cultural consumption; social networks. Standard Measures SEG, Registrar General's Social Class, Goldthorpe Classes, Hope-Goldthorpe Scale, and the International Socio-economic Index of Occupational Status were computed for all jobs held by the respondent during his/her career, partner's current job and respondent's parents' job when the respondent was aged 14 years. The Socialist/Laissez-faire Scale (Heath, Evans and Martin, 1993) was also computed for respondents.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
random selection of households within each of three geographical strata (Belfast, west of Northern
Face-to-face interview
Computer assisted interviewing using BLAISE.
