Book Chapter

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

  • Marco H.D. van Leeuwen
  • Ineke Maas

This article explores intergenerational social mobility in the preindustrial era, analyzing data from France, Germany, and Sweden. Using uniform coding schemes (HISCO, HISCLASS, HISCAM), the study examines total, upward, downward, and sectoral mobility, addressing two main questions: (1) How did social mobility change over time? (2) Are there variations between countries and regions? The findings reveal that in France, mobility increased irregularly from the 1720s to 1850, while data for Germany and Sweden are more fragmented. Sweden stands out for high downward mobility, often involving farmers' sons becoming laborers, but also shows surprising upward mobility into farming. The study concludes that premodern social structures were less stable than theorized and that revolutionary events, like the French Revolution, did not significantly impact male mobility (no Sorokin effect).

  • Keywords:
  • intergenerational social mobility,
  • modernisation,
  • status maintenance,
  • wars and revolutions,
  • comparison by coding comparatively,
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Marco H.D. van Leeuwen

Utrecht University, Netherlands - ORCID: 0000-0001-6459-7051

Ineke Maas

Utrecht University, Netherlands - ORCID: 0000-0001-5041-7347

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  • Publication Year: 2025
  • Pages: 175-203
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

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

Authors

Marco H.D. van Leeuwen, Ineke Maas

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9.11

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

La mobilità sociale nelle società preindustriali: tendenze, cause ed effetti (secc. XIII-XVIII) / Social mobility in pre-industrial societies: tendencies, causes and effects (13th-18th centuries)

Editors

Angela Orlandi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

612

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0666-2

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0667-9

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0668-6

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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