Intergenerational Social Mobility and Anti-System Voting: The Journey Matters

• In Event: The Political Economy of Inequality: From Campaign Finance to Radical Voting (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

The idea that a high level of social mobility within society underpins democracy has well established roots. The salience of this relationship is particularly poignant in contemporary politics. Fewer individuals are upwardly mobile and more downwardly mobile than in previous generations. There is now also a political outlet for dissatisfied voters, anti-system parties. I analyse the European Social Survey with diagonal reference models, which separate origin and destination effects from mobility effects. My findings show that one’s origins, measured by parental educational attainment, is an important predictor of anti-system right support. There is an additional mobility effect, upward social mobility reduces support for the anti-system right whereas downward mobility increases support. Contrastingly, anti-system left support is from a wider cross-section of society, and there is no evidence that parental origin or mobility experience is statistically significant. Finally, I show that origin effects are consistent across countries.

Author

• Andrew McNeil, London School of Economics