Project background

The study sought to combine two normally separate fields of study, family life and social mobility. It examined connections between them through in-depth life story interviews. The objective of the research was to produce a sample-based investigation of ordinary families and normal processes of intergenerational influences.

The study explored geographical and social mobility and the role of the family in intergenerational terms from the perspective of gender and migration. Participants were asked extensive questions relating to their own, and their family's, education, politics, family tree, marriage and relationships, housing, parents' work, and leisure.

The fieldwork strategy selected a 'middle generation' of men and women aged 30 to 55 and married with children. Where possible an older or younger (over 16) member of the family was additionally interviewed. The middle generation informants were initially drawn from a sub-sample of informants interviewed for an ESRC stagflation project who had agreed to be re-interviewed. They were located in 200 polling districts in 35 parliamentary constituencies in Scotland, London, north-west, west and south-east England and the Midlands. Further polling districts were added and a stratified occupational quota was introduced to ensure an appropriate class balance. The collection consists of interviews with 170 informants. Of these, 87 were middle generation, 42 younger, and 41 were older generation informants. The families included 26 represented by a lone informant and 11 where three generations were interviewed. The interviews average 54 pages in length.