Perception Of Inequality And Social Mobility

This paper explores the perceptions of inequality and their associations with social mobility exploiting the ISSP and LiTS cross-country data sets. These perceptions vary across countries as well as across individuals within countries. We try to explain this variation by examining the diverse opportunities for vertical social mobility available to individuals. The main research question raised in the paper is whether our perception of income differentiation is driven by experience of past mobility and availability of the upward leading instruments. In other words, is a more socially mobile society more tolerant to income inequality than a less mobile and segmented one? The intuitive answer seems to be an obvious “yes”, but empirical evidence is still scarce.