Beliefs about Social Fluidity and Preferences for Social Policies

Several studies have shown that attitudes toward social policy are influenced by expectations of social mobility at the individual level and perceptions of social fluidity at the aggregate level. If individuals think of inequalities as the result of inherited disadvantages, they will be more willing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of social policy Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 615 - 633
Main Authors JAIME-CASTILLO, ANTONIO M., MARQUÉS-PERALES, ILDEFONSO
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2014
Subjects
Attitudes
Beliefs
Competition
Distribution
Economics
Equality
Expectations
Hypotheses
Income redistribution
Inequality
Meritocracy
Politics
Population
Population distribution
Resources
Social attitudes
Social classes
Social inequality
Social Mobility
Social origins
Social perception
Social Policy
Social Status
Social structure
Sociology
Spain
Upward mobility
Wills
Andalusia Spain
Spain
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Summary:Several studies have shown that attitudes toward social policy are influenced by expectations of social mobility at the individual level and perceptions of social fluidity at the aggregate level. If individuals think of inequalities as the result of inherited disadvantages, they will be more willing to distribute resources from the rich to the poor. However, one important question remains open: How do individuals perceive the distribution of opportunities in society? In this paper we argue that individuals believe a society to be fair if opportunities for reaching the top of the social ladder are equally distributed among the population. That is, the distribution of resources is fair to the extent that individual outcomes do not depend on social origins. To address this issue, we asked a representative sample of individuals in the Spanish region of Andalusia what they think the chances are for persons of different social origins to achieve a high social status. We have found that those who think the chances for reaching the top are unequally distributed are those who support greater government responsibility and oppose meritocracy and competition, as they believe the initial distribution of opportunities to be unfair.
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ISSN:0047-2794
1469-7823
DOI:10.1017/S0047279414000221