Redefining Opportunity: Why Social Mobility Matters?

Bringing Together Voices for Change

Held in Chile, The Future of Social Mobility conference convened a broad range of actors from academia, the public and private sectors, civil society, and philanthropy to reflect on how opportunity can be strengthened across generations. Jointly organised by the Julius Baer Foundation and the Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES), the conference created a space for exchange across perspectives that rarely meet — connecting research, lived experience, and practical implementation.

Throughout the discussions, participants returned to a shared understanding: meaningful progress on social mobility depends on collaboration. Data and analysis are essential, but lasting change requires aligning evidence with community-driven approaches and mobilising resources in ways that strengthen the systems shaping people’s life chances. Social mobility, the group agreed, is not only about individual advancement, but about building conditions that allow people to move forward without being pulled back.

For the Julius Baer Foundation, the conference reflected its role as a convener on wealth inequality. “Real solutions emerge when all voices are heard — from researchers and funders to those leading change on the ground,” said Laura Hemrika, CEO of the Foundation. Bringing these voices together, she noted, helps translate insight into action and ensures that research informs practice.

Understanding Social Mobility

Social mobility refers to the ability of people and families to improve their prospects over time. In reality, however, progress often depends less on effort than on circumstance — where people are born, their social background, and the networks they can access.

A recurring theme of the conference was the need to challenge the assumption that talent will naturally rise. Instead, speakers highlighted the importance of creating environments in which people can not only move upward, but also sustain progress. Achieving this requires coordinated action across education, employment, housing, and social support systems.

Without deliberate collaboration, inequalities tend to reproduce themselves. With it, institutions can help open pathways that make mobility more resilient and less fragile.

From Research to Lived Experience

While research can identify patterns and barriers, understanding social mobility also requires listening to lived experience. María Luisa Méndez, Principal Investigator at COES, emphasised that mobility should not be reduced to a set of indicators. It reflects everyday struggles, expectations, and collective aspirations.

For Méndez, the value of the conference lay in stepping beyond academic silos. “This dialogue allows us to listen, learn, and act alongside those shaping solutions in communities,” she said, pointing to the importance of shared spaces where evidence and experience can inform one another.

Urbanist Gautam Bhan, Associate Dean at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, echoed this perspective. In contexts of deep inequality, he argued, effort alone is often insufficient. “Families may do everything right — save, study, plan — and still find no clear path forward,” he said. When the link between effort and reward breaks down, systemic support becomes essential — from affordable housing and reliable transport to access to decent jobs.

Why Education Alone Is Not Enough

Education featured prominently in the discussions, but not as a standalone solution. Speakers cautioned against treating schooling or degrees as a guarantee of mobility in systems marked by structural inequality.

Mike Savage, Professor at the London School of Economics, observed that the promise of meritocracy is increasingly strained. “The expectation was that degrees would lead to security and fair pay,” he said. “Today, many graduates face uncertain work, low wages, and limited growth — regardless of their abilities.”

Research by Jody Agius Vallejo, Professor at the University of Southern California, reinforced this point. Studying Latino communities in the United States, she found that even when individuals attain higher education, mobility often remains fragile. “Higher education improves prospects, but it doesn’t remove obstacles,” she explained. First-generation graduates frequently lack access to informal networks, mentorship, and knowledge of professional norms — factors that strongly shape career trajectories.

Education may open doors, but unequal institutions and weak safety nets can still determine what happens once people step inside.

The Role of Social Capital

If education alone is insufficient, what else matters? Across sessions, speakers highlighted the importance of social capital — the relationships, networks, and informal rules that influence access to opportunity.

María José Álvarez, Professor of Sociology at Universidad de los Andes, described how connections to people from different backgrounds can act as “gate openings” to jobs, information, and guidance. These ties often shape who hears about opportunities early, who receives advice at critical moments, and who has support when plans falter.

But such networks do not form automatically. “Bringing people together is not enough to build trust,” Álvarez noted. “It takes time, care, and deliberate effort.” Institutions play a key role in creating spaces for cross-class interaction, mentorship, and long-term relationship-building.

This insight also informs the Julius Baer Foundation’s approach. Across its portfolio, the Foundation supports organisations that combine learning with exposure, mentorship, and pathways into employment — recognising that skills development is most effective when embedded in broader systems of opportunity.

Mobility as a Collective Process

Another strong theme was the collective nature of social mobility. Vallejo’s research shows that upward mobility is often accompanied by continued responsibilities toward family and community. “Individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds rarely leave their communities behind,” she explained. “They feel a duty to bring others forward.”

Across Latin America and the United States, this has led to alternative models of mobility, where professionals invest in scholarships, business networks, and community-based financial institutions. Rather than escaping disadvantage, they work to reduce it.

Méndez observed a similar dynamic in Chile, where research participants often framed their achievements not as personal triumphs, but as contributions to family, neighbourhood, and society. In this view, success is measured not by distance travelled alone, but by how many people benefit along the way.

What This Means for Philanthropists

For philanthropists, these insights raise important questions. Supporting social mobility often involves engaging with systems that shape opportunity — and recognising where existing structures may unintentionally limit it. Doing so requires more than financial due diligence. It calls for trust, a long-term perspective, and an openness to complexity, including the risks of inaction, such as social fragmentation, declining trust in institutions, and reduced economic resilience over time.

Here, the Julius Baer Foundation’s convening role becomes particularly relevant. By connecting philanthropists with researchers, NGO leaders, and social entrepreneurs, the Foundation helps create the understanding needed for thoughtful and informed engagement. As Mike Savage noted during the conference, philanthropy can be especially impactful when it is willing to be bold — supporting innovative approaches and taking risks that the public sector cannot yet absorb.

Moving Forward Together

The conference did not offer simple solutions — nor did it aim to. What emerged instead was a shared direction: progress on social mobility depends on listening, partnership, and designing solutions with communities rather than for them.

Social mobility is not a ladder climbed alone, nor a problem solved through education in isolation. It is a collective process shaped by institutions, relationships, and place. By convening across divides and grounding debate in lived experience, The Future of Social Mobility conference illustrated how dialogue itself can become a catalyst for more resilient and inclusive forms of progress.