The reproduction of class relations by gender in Canada

Abstract. This paper builds on the research on occupational mobility and class reproduction in Canada and elsewhere by drawing on a national representative sample of Canadians surveyed in 1986. It evaluates the effect of mother's and father's class on class position of male and female Canadians, controlling for education, age, ethnicity, language, and region. The analysis shows that the tendency for class--defined in terms of relations of production and exploitation--reproduction in Canada exceeds that which could be expected by chance alone, that the level of class reproduction is about equal for the ownership and the new middle classes, that class reproduction is same-sex directed, and that father's effect is stronger on sons than on daughters and that mother's effect is stronger on daughters than it is on sons. Resume. Cette communication vient s'ajouter aux recherches sur la mobilite professionnelle et de la reproduction des classes au Canada et ailleurs. Pour ce faire, elle s'inspire d'un echantillon national representatif des Canadiens ayant fait l'objet d'un sondage en 1986. Elle evalue l'effect de la classe du pere et de la mere sur la position sociale des Canadiens et des Canadiennes, en prenant en consideration les etudes, l'age, l'ethnicite, la langue et la region. L'analyse indique que la tendance a reproduire les classes, definie en termes des relations de production et d'exploitation, depasse les niveaux qu'on aurait pu prevoir en tenant compte uniquement du hasard. De plus, elle montre que ces niveaux de reproduction sont a peu pres les memes pour les classes des proprietaires et les nouvelles classes moyennes, que la reproduction des classes est dirigee par les parents du meme sexe et que l'influence du pere aupres des fils est plus forte que celle qu'il exerce sur les filles, alors que la mere exerce une plus grande influence sur les filles que sur les fils. There have been substantial shifts in the class structure of Canadian society. Whether these changes are rooted in technological innovations or the development of corporate capitalism, they have resulted in the growth of large bureaucratic organizations in which professional-administrative and managerial positions (i.e., a new middle class) have multiplied while the proportion of labourers employed in farming, low-skilled manual, and non-manual occupations has either decreased or remained the same (Clement and Myles, 1994; McRoberts, 1985a: 76; Porter and Blishen, 1971). (2) The increasing differentiation of the Canadian labour force and the expansion of professional-administrative and managerial positions necessarily produces a certain level of forced mobility. What is not clear, however, is whether access to these new positions is more or less equal than before. Has the recent transformation of class structure produced a significant shift in the way in which the class of origin influences the class of destination? This paper intends to address this issue by evaluating the extent of class mobility in Canada using a neo-Marxian conceptualization of class concept. Review of the Literature A subject of vigorous debate is the degree to which placement in various class positions is influenced by a rational procedure of social selection or some type of ascribed sponsorship. Writers in the liberal-pluralist tradition, rooted in the work of Spencer (see Carneiro, 1967) and Parsons (1951: 76-98, 183-189; 1960: chs. 3 and 4; 1967, ch. 4) and that elaborated by Treiman (1970) and Erickson and Goldthrope (1992), argue that with advanced industrialization, such as that in Canada, there occurs a decreasing rigidification of the class structure and increasing likelihood of inter- and intra-generational mobility. Industrialization entails technological advancement, more differentiation of division of labour, and more rational organization of employment. Traditional authoritarian ascriptive norms are replaced by new norms, based on universalism and equality of opportunity, which are congruent with the expanding division of labour. …