Occupational expansion, fertility decline and recruitment to the professions in Scotland 1850-1914 (with special reference to the chartered accountants of Edinburgh)

Abstract

Two features of western industrial-urban societies have been considered as significant determinants of the extent of collective - upward social mobility. The expansion of the tertiary sector of the economy relative to the primary and secondary sectors combined with the existence of social class differentials in fertility allegedly created a 'social vacuum', the result being an 'enforced' movement of individuals from high fertility manual families into white collar statuses left vacant by the reduced ability of non-manual families to secure self recruitment due to their comparatively low fertility.

This hypothesis is examined in the context of a high growth 'new' profession - chartered accountancy in Edinburgh between 1853-1914 when occupational expansion in the white collar sector and differential fertility were particularly evident. The determinants of the ability of this group to secure self recruitment (their nuptiality and fertility) are investigated especially in terms of developments within their profession as is their capacity to ensure potential and actual perfect self recruitment. The extent to which available vacant statuses were occupied by upwardly mobile sons from alternative social origins is quantified.

The causes of occupational expansion in the professions during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are considered as having been more complex than can be simply explained by the demand for professional services engendered by the maturation and increasing sophistication of the economy. Social relationships between stFata in the geographical source of recruitment also resulted in social pressures for generational status improvement and a supply of sons aspiring to enter the professions.

The precise social origins of recruits to the Edinburgh C. A. profession are investigated over time and as they were influenced by the presence of ascriptive barriers to upward social circulation and by the means of testing and selection. The availability of an adequate education, parental motivation, the process of career decision making, the system of vocational training, and, the effects of 'professionalization' on these factors are considered as having been important to the social derivation of recruits and determined those who succeeded in- qualifying to enter vacant statuses in the profession.