Gender Differences in Intergenerational Occupational Persistence and Mobility in Central Europe.

This article investigates intergenerational occupational persistence and mobility across Central Europe (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Po-land and Slovakia) based on EU-SILC survey data from 2005, 2011 and 2019. Social Stratification in Eastern Europe survey data from 1993 is also used as a historical comparison. These surveys are uniquely suited for the analysis of occupational mobility because of their large sample sizes and the inclusion of detailed parental occupation data. I report gender differences in total and net mobility rates based on the analysis of 7×7 occupational mobility tables as well as predicted probabilities (derived from log odds from multinomial regression) of attaining specific occupational destinations based on parental occupational origins. The reproduction of occupational status is particular-ly strong in professional occupations (for both men and women), trade and crafts (for men) and sales/clerical occupations (for women), which seem to be in dynamic equilibrium. Compared with men, women’s increases in social fluidity (and higher rates of upward mobility) are shaped much more strongly by changes in occupational structure, although this has weakened in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Finally, I find that women have much greater chances than men of upward mobility in attaining professional occupations from lower family origins, and this trend seems to have been strengthening in recent years.