Success or Failure in the City? Social Mobility and Rural-Urban Migration in Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Groningen, the Netherlands

This article studies the relation between rural-urban migration and the upward and downward social mobility of different social groups from the perspective of the sending countryside and not of the receiving city. It utilizes two datasets regarding people born in the Groningen clay soil region (the Netherlands). By applying a revised version of HISCLASS for social stratification, it compares the social mobility of urban migrants with those staying in the countryside. Analysis of both databases shows distinct social differences in rural-urban migration, with children from non-agrarian rural eli... Mehr ...