Social mobility, education and populism

Sergio Perelman, Pierre Pestieau and Maria Racionero
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Sergio Perelman: Université de Liège
Pierre Pestieau: Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium

No 2023026, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: In this article, we show that the populist attitudes that lead to extremists voting and social unrests can be explained by the breakdown of the social elevator, i.e. the decline in social mobility. This explanation seems to apply to all the 27 European countries studied. It is particularly surprising in countries like Belgium and France, which devote around 30% of their GDP to social protection. It would seem that these welfare states naively believed that simply combating poverty and social inequality was enough to revive the social elevator. This does not seem to be the case.

Keywords: Populism; social mobility; education policy; Gatsby curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 H31 H50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13
Date: 2023-10-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2023026

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