Downward Mobility and Beliefs About Redistributive Policies

• In Event: 212 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Policy and Politics II

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of downward occupational mobility on support for economic redistributive policies. The sociological literature on the relationship between class/occupational position and stratification beliefs lacks dynamic qualities related to positions, for example, that people might occupy the same position/location but arrived there via distinct mobility trajectories. This paper uses data from the GSS to assess--net of other factors--the role of patterns of downward mobility verses non-downward mobility in structuring attitudes about policies to redistribute resources toward the poor. Preliminary findings indicate that occupational skidding has a conservative effect in structuring these stratification beliefs.

Author

• George Wilson, University of Miami