Social mobility and subjective well-being revisited: The importance of individual locus of control

It has been postulated that movements both upward and downward the social ladder across generations attenuate individual subjective well-being (SWB) in terms of life satisfaction or happiness. Yet, results remain inconclusive concerning whether only upward, only downward, or both forms of social mobility actually harm SWB or not. We argue that whether social mobility is experienced as harmful depends on individuals’ psycho-social dispositions. As an applied example, we ask whether harmful effects of intergenerational social mobility on SWB may be different for individuals with an internal vs. external locus of control, i.e. whether individuals ascribe control of events to themselves or to outside forces. An internal locus of control has been observed to act as a buffer against stressful life events, to protect from role strain, and to better suit jobs with high demands for autonomy and flexibility. For this reason, it may attenuate potentially harmful social mobility effects as well. Using German panel data of a cohort of former Gymnasium students, we estimate a multilevel panel model of the interaction between intergenerational occupational mobility and locus of control on SWB controlled for other well-known predictors of SWB. Results suggest that respondents with a more internal locus of control are hardly affected by social mobility. In contrast, respondents with a more external locus of control obviously suffer from upward social mobility. We conclude that (i) an internal locus of control may buffer against harmful effects of upward social mobility on SWB, and (ii) considering differential effects by individual psycho-social dispositions can contribute to resolve inconsistencies in the analysis of social mobility effects.