Abstract: In today's transforming society, issues related to the social mobility of the population remain relevant enough to continue the study of this phenomenon. As in the last century, various aspects of social mobility are being actively explored, especially with a change in the socio-political situation in the country and in the world as a whole. The purpose of this work is to identify the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of the social mobility of the population in foreign sociology. To achieve the goals set, the main approaches of foreign researchers to the problem of social mobility were studied, historiographical and textbook materials on this topic were considered. Structural-functional, axiological, activity approaches were chosen as the methodological basis of the study, the descriptive method and the method of scientific analysis were used. The formation of the main approaches to the study of social mobility of the population in the works of leading foreign researchers is studied, the reasons for their emergence and prospects for further development are analyzed. Thus, we came to the conclusion that the problems of social mobility of the population are especially relevant today, when there is a rapid informatization of society, the digital economy is rapidly developing. Various transformational processes affect the scale of social mobility of the population in different ways, each era contains features of the manifestation of this phenomenon and requires a separate study, taking into account all the various aspects.