Wealth & Social Mobility

In this line of research, I investigate the effects of wealth (such as savings and property), which has frequently been neglected in studies of socioeconomic status, on support for redistribution and other policy preferences. I also examine how the attitudes of wealth-holders are distinct from those of members of other strata of societies. Finally, I analyze how income and wealth inequalities are related to the upward and downward social mobility of members of all social classes.

Wealth and Preferences for Redistribution

How does wealth affect policy preferences? While the wealthy have been shown to have disproportionate influence in shaping policies in many societies, we know little about how wealth itself shapes policy preferences. In these studies, the relationship between wealth and support for redistributive social policies is examined in cross-national perspective using data on 31 countries from the 2009 wave of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the first wave of that study to include measures of wealth. The findings presented in these papers demonstrate that wealth is a determinant of policy preferences, but that the effects differ by type of wealth (savings versus home equity) and country-specific context.

Key words: wealth, assets, financial wealth, housing wealth, preferences for redistribution, policy preferences

Steele, Liza G., Joseph N. Cohen, and Joseph Reynolds van der Naald. 2022. "Wealth, Income, and Preferences for Redistribution: Evidence from 30 Countries." Social Science Research. Published article | Preprint and data at SocArXiv
Steele, Liza G. 2021. “Wealth and Preferences for Redistribution: The effects of financial assets and home equity in 31 countries.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology. DOI: 10.1177/0020715220988088. Published article | PDF | Online Supplement

Income Inequality, Equal Opportunity, and Preferences for Redistribution

This paper explores how income inequality and social mobility affect attitudes about redistribution in global perspective. Individual-level data on over 50,000 individuals from 38 countries in the International Social Survey Programme is combined with country-level data from the World Bank, the Standardized Income Inequality Database, and the Economic Freedom of the World data. OLS regression models with robust, clustered standard errors are estimated to account for the presence of unobserved, country-level effects in the error terms. Social mobility is found to be a more important predictor of preferences for redistribution than income inequality. Specifically, those who live in countries with greater social mobility are more supportive of redistribution while individuals who have experienced upward mobility themselves are less supportive, although an upwardly mobile individual in a more mobile society is more supportive of redistribution than an upwardly mobile individual in a less mobile society. The central finding of this study is that the tangibility of redistributive social policies may bolster support for social spending. The structures and institutions that facilitate upward mobility—and potentially attenuate some of the detrimental effects of income inequality—are generally the products of more comprehensive redistribution policies, and public opinion may reflect this.

Key words: income inequality, social mobility, policy preferences, preferences for redistribution

Steele, Liza G. 2015. “Income Inequality, Equal Opportunity, and Attitudes About Redistribution.” Social Science Quarterly. 96(2):444-464. DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12145. Published article | PDF
Steele, Liza G. 2013. Valuing the welfare state: A cross-national analysis of attitudes about income inequality and redistribution in 91 countries with case analyses of Brazil, China, France, and the United States. Princeton University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 3597563. Published version

Google Sites

Report abuse