There is longstanding pride among Australians that by throwing off the social class demarcations that defined their ossified colonial parent society, England, they created an open, socially mobile society. The paper tests this belief by estimating long run social mobility rates in Australia 1870–2017, using the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from electoral rolls 1903–1980, and records of degrees awarded by Melbourne and Sydney universities 1852–2017. Status persistence was strong throughout, with an intergenerational correlation of occupational or educational status of 0.7–0.8, and no change over time. Mobility rates were also just as low within UK immigrants and their descendants, so ethnic group effects explain none of the immobility. The less pronounced class divisions of Australia compared to England did not enhance social mobility. A possible sign of enhanced Australian social mobility – the fact that surnames associated with convicts already had a modest elite status by 1870 – seems to derive from convicts transported to Australia from England being positively selected in terms of human capital.

长期以来，澳大利亚人一直感到自豪，因为他们摆脱了定义其僵化的殖民父母社会英国的社会阶级界限，从而创建了一个开放的，社会上可流动的社会。本文通过使用稀有姓氏的状况来估算1870-2017年澳大利亚的长期社会流动率，以此检验这一信念。状态信息包括1903-1980年选举册中的职业，以及1852-2017年墨尔本和悉尼大学授予的学位记录。在整个过程中，状态持续性很强，职业或教育状态的代际关联为0.7-0.8，并且随着时间的推移没有变化。在英国移民及其后代中，流动率也同样低，因此族裔效应无法说明流动性。与英格兰相比，澳大利亚的阶级分化不那么明显，并没有增加社会流动性。澳大利亚社会流动性增强的可能迹象（到1870年，与定罪犯有关的姓氏已经具有中等精英地位），似乎源于从英国运往澳大利亚的定罪犯在人力资本方面得到了积极选择。