Social Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution in Latin America

This paper has two parts. The first part presents an overview of the evidence concerning intergenerational mobility in Latin America. The second part studies the correlation between mobility perceptions and political preferences. The results show, first, that educational mobility is much lower in Latin American countries than in the United States, and that Latin Americans are quite pessimistic about their own mobility experiences and social equality in general. Second, the results show that preferences for redistribution are stronger (i) among poor individuals, (ii) among those who believe that they were unable to surpass their parents´ socioeconomic status, and (iii) among those who think that market outcomes are unfair. A similar result applies with respect to the support for both market outcomes and the privatization of state-owned enterprises.