Insee Première · July 2025 · n° 2068

Upward social mobility is more frequent for employees than for the self-employed

Job classes, which take into account both the level of qualification of the job held and the professional status (self-employed or employed), are an original way of quantifying intergenerational social mobility. They allow a more detailed study of situations where people or at least one of their parents are self-employed. In terms of job classes, upward social mobility was the most frequent: in 2023-2024, in France excluding Mayotte, 48% of women were in a situation of upward social mobility in relation to their mother, and 39% of men in relation to their father. The level of job qualifications has risen from one generation to the next. Social immobility in the sense of job classes remained frequent, particularly for men (37%). Whatever their level of job, employees, both women and men, were more likely than self-employed people to be moving up the social ladder.
Self-employed people were less likely to be upwardly mobile than employees, given other comparable characteristics. This was particularly the case among micro-entrepreneurs.