European welfare states cost offspring of managerial and professional families $10.000 a year: Multilevel analysis, 28 nations, 50,000+ respondents
MDR Evans (ISSS) - Australia
Keywords: Welfare state, social mobility, free-market, politics, multilevel analysis, cross-cultural, advantages of birth, elite, children of elites
Abstract
1. PURPOSE. Discover the effects of government institutions and policies on intergenerational social mobility, specifically by comparing welfare states (Sweden, Austria, etc.), intermediate nations (Switzerland, Taiwan, etc.) and free market nations (USA, Chile, etc.) .
2. CONTEXT. Differences in social spending and corporatism are key cleavages in government policy in the modern world.
3. METHODS. Multilevel multivariate analysis of 50,000+ respondents in 25+ nations.
4. DATA. World Inequality Study versions 2.1 (in hand) and 3.0 (in progress). These incorporate the International Social Survey Programme's Inequality-1 through Ineq-4 modules with the latest Ineq-5 in progress.
5. VARIABLES. Country level: Social spending (averaged over many years) and corporatism (averaging several standard definitions). Individual level: Father's occupational status & respondent's occupational status (8+ vertical occupational status categories recoded from ISCO); education of respondent and parents, income; the usual demographics.
6. RESULTS. The welfare state slightly reduces education (10% fewer university graduates for offspring of high and low status families alike, all else equal). Nonetheless the welfare state has no statistically significant impact on occupation, if anything offering jobs fractionally better than the free market.
After entering the labor force, welfare state offspring of low status families earn neither more nor less than they would in a free market. But offspring of professional and managerial families do far worse in the welfare state, earning $10,000 a year less than they would in a free market.
Family income (which includes spouse's earnings, social assistance, and transfer payments) is a little different: the welfare state is better (by $10,000 a year) for offspring of the very lowest working class families but worse (also by $10,000) for offspring of managerial and professional families at the top of the hierarchy.
7. IMPLICATIONS. These results are central to ongoing arguments in the status attainment literature and more widely in national politics throughout the developed world.