Abstract: Using the methods of literature review, interview and path analysis, this paper ana- lyzed the social mobility of retired elite athletes in China.The result shows that most of retired elite athletes (75.53%) achieved upward intergenerational mobility in China.But the propor- tion (59.09%) of horizontal mobility was more than others in intra-generation mobility.The social mobility situation was of significant differences because of the different of social stratum background, gender, sports achievement, educational background, rural and urban.Sports a- chievement was the most important factor to the re-employment status of retired elite athletes. The second more important was social stratum educational background, and gender influenced the re-employment status slightly.