Frank Parkin has seen the relatively high rate of upward mobility as a ‘political safety-valve’. It provides opportunities for many able and ambitions members of the working class to improve their situation. As a result, the frustration which might result, if opportunities for upward mobility were absent, is prevented from developing.
To some degree this will weaken the working class. The upwardly mobile have found individual solutions to the problems of low status and low pay. If they remained within the working class, they might well join with other members in collectivist strategies which might benefit the class as a whole.