Latent Structure Models of Mobility

Abstract

This paper proposes several latent structure models for the analysis of mobility tables and examines the relationship of these to some earlier mobility models (e.g., the "perfect" and the "quasi-perfect" mobility models). Data from the classic Danish (5 X 5) and British (5 X 5 and 8 X 8) mobility tables are used to illustrate the utility of these methods in comparative analysis. A model designated as a quasi-latent structure is suggested as a plausible rendering of the structure of mobility for each set of data, and this model is used to derive various kinds of substantive inferences.