Sociologists have identified two main types of social mobility.
(i) Intergenerational mobility refers to social mobility within a single generation. It is measured by comparing the occupational status of an individual at two or more points in time. Thus, if a person begins his working life as an unskilled manual worker and ten years later is employed as an account, he is socially mobile in terms of intergenerational mobility.
(ii) Intergenerational mobility refers to social mobility between generations. It is measured by comparing the occupational status of sons with that of their fathers. Thus, if the son of an unskilled manual worker becomes an accountant, he is socially mobile in terms of intergenerational mobility. This section will focus on intergenerational mobility, the type of social mobility most frequently studied by sociologists.