Möjligheternas städer? : En kohortstudie av social mobilitet under urbaniseringen i Sverige 1890-1940

Sammanfattning: Cities of possibility? – A cohort study of social mobility during the urbanization of Sweden 1890-1940  This cohort study examines the social mobility of countryside migrants to Swedish cities in the period of 1890-1940. The purpose is to determine whether the claim that cities had enhanced possibilities for the individual and therefore offered a chance for social advancement. The question in operation is whether migration to a city meant an improved social advancement. To aid the analysis classic urbanization theory and multi-phasic demographic response were added. To observe the social mobility in cities a cohort of 315 people born in the southeast of Kalmar län in the year 1890 were observed on indicators of geographical and social mobility as well as family life. This group was then divided into one cohort that moved to the cities and one that stayed in the countryside. The study found, in agreement with previous research on the area, that most of the individuals moving to the cities were from a blue-collar [obesutten] background and that this group had a small majority of women. The individuals from a white-collar [besutten] background mostly skirted the cities, preferring to stay in the countryside or to emigrate. However, Swedish urbanization studies of this period have not agreed on whether cities had a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the social mobility of those who migrated there. This study found a complicated pattern where blue-collar women had an improved social advancement in the cities. Meanwhile, white-collar women had a larger risk of degrading socially and blue-collar men in the cities had the least mobility of all groups involved. To summarize, migration to the cities were mostly a choice by those with blue-collar background and while the women did enhance their social advancement as a group the rest of those who urbanized were negatively impacted. This, on top of only a few white-collar women and only two white-collar men choosing to move to a city indicates, with aid of the theory of multi-phasic demographic response, that cities mostly did not offer an opportunity better than the countryside or a life overseas could. Hence, it was found that cities did not improve social advancement.