The Australian academic elite : their family origins and structure

Abstract

The inverse relationship between mobility and fertility has generally been explained either in terms of "environmental" factors, or in terms of "hereditary" causes. In his theory of "social capillarity", Dumont asserted that "just as a column of liquid has to be thin in order to rise under the force of capillarity, so a family must be small in order to rise in the social scale." (Italics added.) On the other hand, Fisher advocated that "the dominating cause (of differential fertility by social classes) lies in the social promotion of the relatively infertile." Show more