Prospects For Upward Mobility Research Articles

Protecting the environment for a brilliant future: prospects of upward mobility and environmental willingness to pay in China

ABSTRACT This paper examines how the prospects of upward mobility (POUM) affects the willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental protection. The POUM may increase environmental WTP through an income effect and an elevated preference for environmental protection. On the other hand, environmental protection serves the role of redistribution as the rich pay more for it through progressive taxes and benefit less because they have more means to avoid harm from pollution. The POUM could thus decrease the WTP for environmental protection as it reduces the preference for redistribution. Using a nationally representative dataset, we find that positive POUM leads to higher environmental WTP, controlling for the current income level and other important determinants. We also find evidence consistent with environmental protection as a redistribution policy hypothesis: the POUM increases environmental WTP more among those with higher redistribution tendencies because the POUM would not reduce environmental WTP as redistribution as much.

Not before Twenty-Five: Contesting Marriage and Looking for the Good Life in Contemporary Urban China

Abstract This article explores how women of different class backgrounds contest the imperative to enter heteronormative marriage in urban China. While the state and the market propose marriage as the only path to the good life, these women describe it as a risky enterprise and an unequal partnership. The social pressure they face highlights the continuing exclusionary role of marriage in present-day Chinese society, as their stand challenges the state-sponsored narrative of “leftover woman.” These women see their unmarried status not as a sacrifice or loss, but rather as a strategy for preserving their autonomy, well-being, and relationships with their own kin and friends. Accordingly, they come across as desiring subjects, though not as uncivil individualists or affectively precarious. The women's affective choices privilege bonds that exceed the patrilineal family and the conjugal couple. Although this preference may jeopardize their social respectability and limit their prospects for upward mobility, it allows them to explore different avenues to the good life.

Flaunt them If you’ve Got them? Informal Connections and Beliefs About Prospects of Upward Mobility in Transition Economies

Flaunt them If you’ve Got them? Informal Connections and Beliefs About Prospects of Upward Mobility in Transition Economies

Don't shoot yourself in the foot! A (real-effort task) experiment on income redistribution and voting

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment that investigates the Meltzer–Richard model of equilibrium tax rates in which individuals are either low or high skilled workers and face a real-effort task that includes leisure at the work place. We find that a large proportion of low-skilled workers vote for the lowest tax rate (the one that gives them the lowest payoff), especially when the alternative tax rate is very high. However, this proportion is significantly reduced in treatments in which the subjects are given extra information about how the tax operates in redistributing income. This result suggests that the lack of information about the role of taxes in income redistribution may be an important factor in explaining the counter-intuitive voting behavior of low-income voters over income redistribution. We also find some support that the prospect of upward mobility and the belief in the negative effect of taxes on productivity make low-income voters support low tax rates, especially when the alternative tax rate is very high.

The Making of Bad Gentry: The Abolition of Keju, Local Governance, and Anti-Elite Protests, 1902–1911

This paper investigates the impact of the abolition of the civil service exam on local governance in early twentieth-century China. Before the abolition, local elites collected surtaxes that financed local public goods, but they were supervised by the state and could lose candidacy for higher status if they engaged in corrupt behavior. This prospect of upward mobility (POUM) gave them incentives to behave well, which the abolition of the exam removed. Using anti-elite protests as a proxy for the deterioration of local governance, we find that prefectures with a higher POUM experienced more incidents of anti-elite protests after the abolition.

Owning your future: Entrepreneurship and the prospects of upward mobility in China

Entrepreneurship can be a means for wealth accumulation and upward mobility. However, would people with prospects of upward mobility (POUM) be more likely to engage in entrepreneurship in order to achieve upward mobility? Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), we show for the first time that people with higher POUM will be more likely to engage in entrepreneurship. The effect of POUM on entrepreneurship is stronger for individuals with lower financial constraints. Moreover, higher POUM can enhance an individual's risk-taking attitude and degree of social capital, thereby motivating entrepreneurship. Overall, this article highlights the crucial noneconomic role that social mobility expectations play in driving individuals towards entrepreneurship.

The Making of Bad Gentry: The Abolition of Keju, Local Governance and Anti-Elite Protests, 1902-1911

This paper investigates the impact of the abolition of the civil service exam on local governance in early twentieth-century China. Before the abolition, local elites collected surtaxes that financed local public goods, but they were supervised by the state and could lose candidacy for higher status if they engaged in corrupt behavior. This prospect of upward mobility (POUM) gave them incentives to behave well, which the abolition of the exam removed. Using anti-elite protests as a proxy for the deterioration of local governance, we find that prefectures with a higher POUM experienced more incidents of anti-elite protests after the abolition.

Glass Ceiling Factors Hindering Women's Advancement in Management Hierarchy

Aims: This aim of this paper is to identify the barriers that hinder women’s advancement in the management hierarchy in the financial sector (both banking and insurance) in Republic of North Macedonia, a country historically known for its masculine culture and stereotype–driven expectations regarding the role of woman in the society.
 Study design: Original research paper. Analytical observational, cross-sectional study.
 Place and duration of study: The research sample was consisted of male and female employees from banking and insurance sectors in North Macedonia in March 2021.
 Methodology: A questionnaire was designed to achieve the objectives of the study in which the items for the barriers have been measured using 5–points Likert scale. The reliability and validity analyses were conducted; descriptive analysis was used to describe the characteristics of the sample as well as the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables, and ANOVA test was employed to examine the proposed three hypotheses.
 Results: The obtained results of Cronbach’s alpha are 0.821, 0.836 0.918 for individual, organizational and cultural factors, respectively. The results suggest a significant difference among the barriers (individual, organizational and cultural factors) that prevent employees from obtaining upper–level positions in the organizations due to gender (p <0.001), whereas no significant difference was found among the barriers that prevent employees from obtaining upper–level positions due to age and work experience.
 Conclusion: The obtained results call for attention to existence of gender disparities and gender inequalities in many areas of life, particularly in the labor market, when climbing up the corporate ladder. The study contributes to the literature by providing new practical insights into gender diversity initiatives focusing on growth and development aspects of female employees by breaking the glass ceiling and recognizing their competencies, qualifications, and achievement as well as giving them prospects for upward mobility.

Moving on up: The impact of income mobility on antisocial behaviour

While the causes for upward income mobility receive considerable attention, the behavioural impact of the prospect of income mobility has been largely overlooked. We design an experiment and a survey to investigate if the prospect of income mobility influences antisocial behaviour. In the experiment, subjects can, at a cost, reduce others’ payoffs and low-income subjects can move up the income distribution. We find that antisocial behaviour occurs more frequently when mobility is not possible. High-income subjects benefit most from the prospect of upward mobility as they are less likely to encounter antisocial behaviour relative to the immobility setting. Mobility by means of effort has lower rates of antisocial behaviour relative to mobility through luck. This is particularly true for low-income individuals who are less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour when mobility occurs through effort. A large majority of survey respondents believe that mobility will decrease antisocial behaviour, predominantly because an environment where it is possible to move up is considered fairer.

Mobility Optimism in an Age of Rising Inequality

ABSTRACT Four decades of rising incomes at the top, combined with income stagnation and declining intergenerational social mobility for the majority of American households, have combined to produce what has been widely described as a “new gilded age” in the United States. Yet analyses of the best available survey data reveal little evidence of a proportional increase in policy demands for redistribution over time. What explains this puzzling pattern of non-responsiveness? One classical explanation, revived in recent economic literature, postulates that high and persisting levels of optimism about the chances for advancement and social mobility reduce Americans’ willingness to support redistributive public policies. Although seemingly paradoxical in the current economic environment, the “prospect of upward mobility” (POUM) hypothesis is consistent with cross-national survey evidence revealing relatively high levels of support for such beliefs. What about trends over-time? This raises an important and largely unexamined question: Have underlying beliefs about POUM also shaped Americans’ attitudes toward redistributive policies during the era of rising inequality? In this paper, we examine the POUM-policy preference link, and how it has changed in recent decades. We find that POUM beliefs have shaped how individuals form policy attitudes toward inequality and taxes, net of partisanship, income, and confidence in government. Study findings provide new and provocative evidence in support of the POUM hypothesis, and we discuss implications for models of inequality attitudes and more generally scholarship on the politics of rising inequality.

Political ideology and the intragenerational prospect of upward mobility

We re-examine the effect of prospects of upward mobility (POUM) on the support for redistribution. Unlike previous studies, we analyse this relation in an intragenerational context and consider the moderating effect of political ideology through which mobility expectations affect redistributive preferences. We find that the POUM effect is conditional on political preferences. That is, we find that only for right-wing individuals expected upward income mobility negatively affects support for redistribution. Left-wing individuals prefer redistribution, regardless of expected upward income movements.

The effects of income mobility and tax persistence on income redistribution and inequality

We conduct a controlled laboratory experiment to explore the effect of income mobility and tax persistence on equilibrium tax rates and inequality. The theoretical framework of the experiment captures the essential elements of the prospect of upward mobility (POUM) hypothesis in a two-period model and characterizes the dynamic equilibrium tax rates. The experiment allows for a clean test of causality between income mobility and redistributive taxes. Outcomes observed in the experiment are mostly consistent with the comparative static predictions of the model. Mobility and stickiness of taxes lead to lower tax rates, but neither is sufficient by itself. When tax rates are persistent, mobility has a significant negative effect on median implemented taxes. An increase in tax persistence decreases tax rates and increases inequality when mobility is present. An increase in mobility decreases inequality but the effect is modest and not statistically significant.

Trends and Disparities in Subjective Upward Mobility since 1940

Concerns that prospects for upward mobility are fading are common in popular and scientific discourse. The fact that fewer Americans today surpass their parents’ economic status than in the past has been invoked to explain trends ranging from the recent spike in drug and alcohol poisonings to the growing appeal of right-wing populism. Using General Social Survey data, the authors ask whether people actually feel that their standard of living is falling short of that of previous generations. In contrast to data on income, education, or occupation, a majority still perceive that they have attained a higher standard of living than their parents. At the same time, mobility experiences are becoming increasingly polarized: subjective upward mobility is rising among highly educated, minority, and urban populations and declining among less educated and rural populations.

The Chinese Dream: Hukou, Social Mobility, and Trust in Government

Objective. Social mobility plays an important role in stabilizing the political order. This article leverages China’s hukou (household registration) reforms to examine the effects of state-engineered social mobility on individuals’ trust in the government. Methods. Using China General Social Survey data for 2010 and entropy balancing for causal effects, this article provides empirical evidence for the attitudinal effects of social mobility at the individual level. Results. It finds that, first, individuals with the rural-to-urban hukou change are more likely to experience upward mobility, while individuals with the nonlocal-to-local hukou change are more pessimistic about their prospects of upward mobility; second, the rural-to-urban hukou change increases beneficiaries’ trust in the central government, while the nonlocal-to-local hukou change increases beneficiaries’ trust in the local government. Conclusion. The Chinese authoritarian regime’s co-optation tactic of engineering upward social mobility via the hukou reforms contributes to its performance-based political legitimacy as it effectively bolsters individuals’ trust in government.

Struggles for African independent education and land rights on the Rand and the significance of the Tsewu court case, 1903-1905: A new analysis

The years between 1886 and 1910 were among the most dramatic in the history of southern Africa. Scholars have documented Johannesburg's urban history and racial politics during this period. What has often been overlooked, however, and which this article draws attention to in a fresh analysis, is the connection between the colonial state's limitation of African rights to land ownership and the development of the struggle for an independent system of education for Africans. At the local level, this broader struggle was expressed explicitly in African discontent at municipal administrative failure to address the issues of adequate sanitation, land rights, tenure security, and prospects for upward mobility. This article argues that it is in a reassessment of the significance of the 1905 litigation initiated by Reverend Edward Tsewu which provides a basis for this new inquiry into the connection between the African struggle for property rights and independent education.

Transitions between informal and formal employment: results from a worker survey in Bangladesh

We study transitions between different types of formal and informal employment using retrospective job histories from a new survey in Bangladesh. Workers transitioning between jobs are most likely to remain in the same type of employment, although there is still substantial churn across employment types. Private wage employees have higher probability of transitioning to a new job, and changes in earnings and benefits suggest evidence of upward mobility. Nevertheless, there is also non-trivial risk of downward mobility, especially for those transitioning into casual employment, which has the lowest level of earnings and benefits and the highest levels of exposure to workplace hazards and violence. Overall, the informal sector appears to include subpopulations consistent with both the traditional view that it is a segmented portion of the labor market with few prospects of upward mobility, and with the alternative view that it is a dynamic, entrepreneurial alternative to wage employment.

Why Do the Poor Vote for Low Tax Rates? A (Real-Effort Task) Experiment on Income Redistribution.

The main purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the voting behavior of low-income voters over income redistribution. To this end, we test a model based on Meltzer and Richard’s (1981) framework through a lab experiment in which individuals vote over two exogenous tax rates and their pre-tax income is determined according to their performance in a real-effort task. We classify individuals into highskilled and low-skilled participants according to their performance in a tournament at the beginning of the experiment. We find that a large proportion of low-skilled workers vote for the lowest tax rate (the one that gives them the lowest payoff), especially when the alternative tax rate is very high. However, this proportion is significantly reduced in treatments in which the subjects are given extra information about how the tax operates in redistributing income. This result suggests that the lack of information about the role of taxes in income redistribution may be an important factor in explaining the counter-intuitive voting behavior of low-income voters over income redistribution. We also find that both the prospect of upward mobility and the belief in the negative effect of taxes on productivity make low-income voters support low tax rates, especially when the alternative tax rate is very high.

Income Inequality and Happiness: An Inverted U-Shaped Curve.

Numerous studies agree that income inequality, rather than absolute income, is an important predictor of happiness. However, its specific role has been controversial. We argue that income inequality and happiness should exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship due to the dynamic competing process between two effects: when income inequality is relatively low, the signal effect will be the dominating factor, in which individuals feel happy because they consider income inequality as a signal of social mobility and expect upward mobility; however, if income inequality level increases beyond a critical point, the jealousy effect will become the dominating factor, in which individuals tend to be unhappy because they are disillusioned about the prospect of upward mobility and jealous of their wealthier peers. This hypothesis is tested in a longitudinal dataset on the United States and a cross-national dataset on several European countries. In both datasets, the Gini coefficient (a common index of a society’s income inequality) and its quadratic term were significant predictors of personal happiness. Further examinations of the quadratic relationships showed that the signal effect was only presented in the European data, while the jealousy effect was presented in both datasets. These findings shed new light on our understanding of the relationship between income inequality and personal happiness.

Learning about the prospects for mobility: Economic and political dynamics following fundamental policy reform

The political left turn in Latin America, which lagged its transition to liberalized market economies by a decade or more, challenges conventional economic explanations of voting behavior. This paper generalizes the forward-looking voter model to a broad range of dynamic, possibly non-concave income processes. Under full information, the model implies support for redistributive policies materializes rapidly if few prospects of upward mobility are present. In contrast, modeling voters' evolving beliefs about an unknown income dynamic process shows a slow and polarizing shift toward redistributive preferences. Simulation using fitted income dynamics suggests that this imperfect information perspective accounts for Latin America's right-to-left political shift, and offers additional insights about political dynamics in the face of economic polarization.

Skewness, Tax Progression, and Demand for Redistribution: Evidence from the UK

We introduce a skewness-based approach to measure tax progression and demand for redistribution. We provide a political economy foundation for a novel measure of skewness by expressing key properties of the classical model of voting over income redistribution (Meltzer and Richard, 1981) and the Prospect Of Upward Mobility (POUM) mechanism (Benabou and Ok, 2001), as well as the conventional notion of a progressive tax, directly in terms of skewness, defined using quantile ratios relative to the median of the income distribution. In an empirical analysis of 1979 - 2013 UK income distributions, we find that skewness has increased over time, with the rich moving further away from the median. While the magnitude of the increase has remained small enough that the observed redistribution (or lack thereof) could be consistent with the POUM hypothesis, more recent periods show an increase in tax progression. Comparisons with standard measures of income inequality indicate that the quantile skewness picks up a different dimension of inequality, not captured by the existing measures.