Women and men share comparable levels of intergenerational social mobility in all Western economies, except for Southern European countries, where women’s life chances appear less determined by their family background. This is puzzling given Southern European’s persistent familialism, lack of institutional support for mothers, and the strong influence of social origin. We examine the role of women’s social class of origin on occupational achievements across birth cohorts in Italy, focusing on the close link between fertility dynamics and social mobility opportunities. By leveraging nationally representative retrospective data, we observed that middle- and working-class women experienced upgraded occupational achievements across birth cohorts in conjunction with educational expansion. Conversely, upper-class women exhibited consistently lower occupational achievements, especially those becoming mothers at a comparatively younger age, facing a higher risk of intergenerational downward mobility. Notably, the poorer labor market achievements of recent generations of upper-class women compared to the previous generations already emerged at labor market entry, suggesting that adverse self-selection mechanisms in early motherhood might be largely responsible for Italian women’s greater overall relative mobility. In Italy, women’s higher social mobility than men’s more likely reflects persistent traditional work–family choices among the better-off than a signal of growing equality of opportunity.

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在所有西方经济体中，女性和男性的代际社会流动性水平相当，但南欧国家除外，南欧国家女性的生活机会似乎较少由家庭背景决定。鉴于南欧人顽固的家庭主义、对母亲缺乏制度支持以及社会出身的强大影响，这令人费解。我们研究了意大利女性出生群体的社会阶层对职业成就的影响，重点关注生育动态和社会流动机会之间的密切联系。通过利用具有全国代表性的回顾性数据，我们观察到，随着教育的扩展，中产阶级和工人阶级女性在不同出生群体中的职业成就都得到了提升。相反，上流社会女性的职业成就始终较低，尤其是那些在相对较年轻的年龄成为母亲的女性，面临着更高的代际向下流动的风险。值得注意的是，与前几代人相比，近几代上层阶级女性在劳动力市场取得的成绩较差，这在进入劳动力市场时就已经出现，这表明早期母亲的不利自我选择机制可能是意大利女性整体相对流动性较大的主要原因。在意大利，女性比男性更高的社会流动性更可能反映了富裕阶层持续存在的传统工作-家庭选择，而不是机会日益平等的信号。

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