Social Mobility and Political Regimes:Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949-2017

Pawel Bukowski (), Gregory Clark, Attila Gáspár and Rita Pető ()
Additional contact information
Pawel Bukowski: Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE London, UK and Polish Academy of Sciences
Rita Pető: Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (KRTK), 1097 Tóth Kálmán Street 4, Budapest, Hungary.

No 2128, CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: This paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary 1949-2017, for upper class and underclass families, using surnames to measure social status. In these years there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People’s Republic, 1949-1989, a Communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. Then the modern liberal democracy, 1989-2020, a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families 1949-2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6-0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the noble class in Hungary in the eighteenth century were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, while social mobility rates did not change measurably during the transition, the composition of the political elite changed fast and sharply.

Keywords: Social mobility; Status Inheritance; Institutions; Transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J62 N34 P36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 84 pages
Date: 2021-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://kti.krtk.hu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/KRTKKTIWP202128.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Journal Article: Social Mobility and Political Regimes: Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949–2017 (2022)
Working Paper: Social mobility and political regimes: intergenerational mobility in Hungary, 1949–2017 (2022)
Working Paper: Social mobility and political regimes: intergenerational mobility in Hungary, 1949-2017 (2021)
Working Paper: Social Mobility and Political Regimes: Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949-2017 (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:has:discpr:2128

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nora Horvath ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).