The perception of inequality of opportunity in Europe

Paolo Brunori

No 04-2016, SERIES from Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro"

Abstract: Does the way scholars measure inequality of opportunity correspond to how people perceive it? What other factors influence individual perception of this phenomenon? To answer these questions we must first clarify how scholars define and measure inequality of opportunity. We discuss the possible mechanisms linking objective measures to subjective perception of the phenomenon, then propose a measure of perceived inequality of opportunity, and finally test our hypothesis by merging data coming from two sources: the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2011) and the International Social Survey Programme (2009). We suggest that the prevailing perception of the degree of unequal opportunity in a large sample of respondents is only weakly correlated with its objective measure. We estimate a multilevel model considering both individual and country level controls to explain individual perception of unequal opportunity. Our estimates suggest that the two most adopted measures of inequality of opportunity have not clear role in explaining its perception. Conversely, other country level variables and personal experiences of intergenerational social mobility are important determinants of how inequality of opportunity is perceived.

Keywords: Inequality of opportunity; inequality perception; intergenerational mobility; attribution theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 D31 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 277
Date: 2016-06, Revised 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ger and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Perception of Inequality of Opportunity in Europe (2017)
Working Paper: The perception of inequality of opportunity in Europe (2015)
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