Experience of social mobility and support for redistribution: Beating the odds or blaming the system?

Perceptions of social mobility in society are one of the most important determinants of individuals’ preferences for redistribution and tolerance for economic inequalities. How the experience of social mobility affects people’s redistributive preferences is however so far little understood. Using cross-country survey data, a newly generated dataset on social mobility and a survey experiment, I examine the effects of experienced social mobility on support for redistribution at the individual level. The survey data, including respondents from 27 countries questioned across three decades, indicates a divide between people who experienced downward mobility as opposed to upward mobility – experiencing downward mobility increases support for redistribution while experiencing upward mobility does not affect redistributive preferences. This finding can be explained by how people’s own mobility experience affects their perceptions of opportunities within society. In line with the self-serving bias, those with negative mobility experiences ‘blame the system’ and extrapolate from their negative experience onto society at large, which increases their demand for redistribution. Conversely, those who experienced positive mobility believe they ‘beat the odds’ and, therefore, do not extrapolate from their experience onto perceptions of societal mobility, leading to no less support for redistribution. This relationship suggests significant implications at the aggregate: As overall absolute mobility increases, ceteris paribus, demand for redistribution rises. In an online survey experiment I test the causality of this mechanism.