There are several techniques adopted by people to get to the top. One of the techniques is by using vertical social mobility. This is not an instant process but a gradual one. This can be used for short as well as long term plans. This is an easy method and a mental process.
What is social vertical movement
What is Social Vertical Movement? We will learn this here.
This phenomenon was first observed by certain sociologists. They observed the movement of certain individuals of the society to the top layer comprising of the creamy layer of wealthy and influential individuals only from relatively lower social classes.
Mobility originates from the word mobile. Mobile means movable. Vertical is
- perpendicular to horizontal or moving or placed in a way, upright.
- in a direction from top to bottom or in reverse, in a vertical line, part or position.
These are as per Collins Dictionary.
As per Wikipedia-Vertical mobility refers to a person or group’s movement up or down a status hierarchy. This is commonly referred to as social mobility, yet vertical mobility can also refer to any movement up or down a hierarchy of any kind, not necessarily related to social status in the same way that social mobility is.
We are concerned with the upward movement. That is what we need to be doing to get to the top.
There are three types of vertical movement.
- The upward movement from a lower social class to a higher social class. For example, a factory worker enrolls in a college to become an international businessman.
- A supervisor makes a big error in judgment causing a huge loss for the factory. He is then dismissed from employment. Later on, this man could only secure the job of a worker in another factory in a different place. This is a downward movement. Here the individual moves from the middle class to the lower class of the society.
- An accountant seeks a job in another establishment in a similar position is an example of horizontal movement. He remains in the same class.
At times the movement across classes is spread into multiple generations.
Intra-generational mobility– This bears the classic example of the factory worker enrolling for a college and rising to become an international businessman. Here the shift from a lower social class to higher social class happens within the same generation.
Inter-generational mobility- Here one individual may be living in a backward area. He may send his children to study in a big city nearby. After they finish studies, they are employed in that city. Thereafter they move to the next social strata, their children are married into the upper strata because of their superior education and better employment. By this, their economic status has grown and in a few years, they are into the upper social class. This process of movement from the lower social class to the higher social class is spread across generations.
Vertical Social mobility is the movement of a group of people within the society from the underprivileged group to the upper social strata. This can happen in various ways. This can happen through changes in jobs, education, marriages, and different cultural adoptions. As they move to the upper class, their presence and participation become frequent. This is because there are more social events like parties and get-togethers in places like clubs and other professional associations.
There are some other factors present in certain societies that affect this shift within societies. Some with more ease than others. Various societies are divided into different classes since ancient days.
Caste -Hierarchy– People were classified by the nature of their abilities and activities. A person of a particular caste engages only in a specific work. This is a limiting factor within some societies. Though this type of society is decreasing in number. This system is seen in the Indian subcontinent.
Class- Hierarchy- People in these societies are grouped or classified into further as lower, higher and middle class. One’s wealth and education are factors that facilitate the movement from one class to another. One can move if they invest in their education. These kinds of societies are prevalent in Europe.
Meritocracy– It if opinionated that this is an ideal society where the individual can rapidly move across social classes, be it lower. upper or middle, with speed and ease. The place of birth, race, color, gender, religion does not come in the way of one’s movement. It is only one’s skills and abilities that matter.
Intra generational mobility in the first two systems may take more time and effort for moving from lower to upper classes but more rapidly possible in a meritocracy.
Meritocracy is the ideal kind of society for most people. The United States of America is such a type of society. You only need to upgrade your skills to move up.
The abovementioned information is needed to be known by us to choose some vital situations and choices over which we have control.
Why the vertical social movement method?
We have found out the various methods. Obviously this was the most practical method of all of them . Surely you will agree with me on this as the other methods seem to be difficult to crack.
How to go forward
Now that we know that upward movement is possible. The time taken is as per your choice. What are your choices?
Now that we know that certain choices can be made by us. Assuming that we have made our choices after due deliberations. Now we are set to learn how to do it.
We have to make certain changes in our lives. The small changes do help in the acceleration of the process. Let us study them.
We have been made aware of vertical social mobility happening in so many different ways. The aim now is to achieve the same phenomenon within our lifetime. It must be noted that our entire life is a sequence of activities taking place with the finite time of or life. This indicates that our resources are not infinite. Agreed that time is not infinite but the way we can utilize this time to do the series of activities are of course infinite.
Our job is to use this time to do the sequence of activities in a particular way to take us on the upward path of vertical mobility. All of us know that 60 minutes make up an hour and therefore 24 hours of a day contain 1440 minutes. One week comprises 10080 minutes and one month of thirty days have 43200 minutes and a complete year is made up of 525600 minutes. It is these 525600 minutes of the year which should be wisely utilized to reach our goal.
It is the way we utilize these 525600 minutes of each year to make us what we become later. Assuming that we have set our goals and have planned on our activities for each year. It is this precious commodity that has to be utilized to move up the social ladder. The only other important commodity in this entire exercise is the goal of our lives.
Now it is almost clear on what we need to do. The same 525600 minutes are available to everybody on this planet. It is only the usage of these minutes as per the goals set are making the difference. The next point is what we can do with these 525600 minutes. This resource should be utilized only if is supporting our goals, or else we should not spend our time on that activity.
So this part about rationing our time to certain activities can be done effectively only if one has set his goals. Our years, months, weeks, hours and minutes have to be allotted to the planned out activities as per the goals set. Defining our activities of the day can be done if our various goals are set. Or else we will be simply drifting without any aim or direction. This method of living is a sure path to failure. We do not want this to happen to our lives.
Even now it is not late. Based on life elapsed, we have to set our goals. This is the only factor which will enable us to draw up plans along with the chain of activities which will consume our 525600 minutes of the year. Once this is done, we are having a schedule of activities ahead of us for the complete year.
Assuming that we have set our goals and have narrowed down on daily activities. We have only two more factors to be considered for our journey of upward social mobility. We should never deviate from our set timetable. Wastage of the commodity called TIME should be avoided. This can keep track of life events chronologically. This enables us to finish school, college, and other training as planned without any failures.
Now we have come to the last factor which is of utmost importance. This is the separating factor between success and failure. Life is a chain of activities that have a cumulative effect on the overall possibilities of success. These activities must be done as per the chronological plan and done with precision. This makes a success out of the task. Most of these daily tasks are of a repetitive kind. Each time we must try to ensure that we do it better next time. At college, we did a test this week. Next week’s test must be done better.
This weekend we cleaned our vehicle. Next weekend, we should endeavor that the vehicle should be cleaned better with some more maintenance steps added in. What happens gradually is that our vehicles will remain in showroom condition, preventing expenditure on maintenance and above all the vehicle is always ready and available for use.
Similarly, if every activity is done with a little more care than the previous time, all of us will agree that nothing can stop us from succeeding in our endeavor to get to the top. We will naturally rise the success ladder. Do agree that this will take us to the next higher social class.
There are thousands of activities or tasks we keep repeating. Some are to done to achieve our goals and some to keep our lives going. We must aim to achieve excellence in all our tasks. This is an attitudinal change needed to get better at the skills required for vertical social mobility.
By constant application of micro excellence in each of our daily activities will lead us to climb to the next level desired. Some activities are repeated every hour, every day, every week, every month and some every year. By this, we get better with our lives.
Even if one is sweeping the floor, it should be done better than the previous time. If one is folding and stacking the washed clothes, it should be done better than before. If we write an essay for our school studies, it should be done better than the previous essay written. This way when every task is improved upon cumulatively, you can imagine how good you will be getting in your life.
This way there is nothing in life you cannot get better at. For any activity, we will be getting better every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade and so on. So the phenomenon of upward vertical mobility kicks in automatically. And nothing can prevent us from reaching the point we desire to reach.
I urge you to leave your thoughts in the comments box below. You can ask me questions too. Let us continue to learn. We observe that there are certain factors we can change and certain factors we cannot change. But the fact remains that we can change ourselves to do the activities with excellence. We can learn all the skills needed.