Moving to college-level education from any other category lowers the probabilities of perceiving falls by 6 percentage points.

**In today’s market economy and process of ongoing reforms, the young and more educated have a better perceived outlook** . The perceived improvement in economic situation of these groups is likely linked to their relatively higher readiness – in terms of skills, for example – to benefit from the opportunities introduced by the reforms. This finding is consistent with the discussion in Arias et al. (2014) in which is pointed that across the region, an increasing share of employers cited skills as a major constraint to firms’ growth. In a context where most education and training systems have failed to keep up with the fast-changing labor market, being flexible and ready to acquire and develop non-routine higher-order skills, including socioemotional (“soft”) skills, translates into more job opportunities and higher earnings.

# **Family background plays a role in perceptions**

**The education of the father plays a role in determining the perception of mobility, hinting that opportunities in the country are associated with factors beyond the individual’s control.** Including the education of the father in the regression shows that secondary and professional education lead to better perceptions of economic mobility than basic or no education. Surprisingly, a father with higher education does not lead to better perceptions than a father with primary education. These results signal that factors beyond the control of the worker may be driving the access to opportunities or the satisfaction in life. In case perceptions were to depend only factors that the interviewee can decide, father characteristics should not have any effect. Other variables, like father belonging to the communist party, did not show statistically significant results.

# **Individual labor market experiences have a role, but less than expected**

**Working for a public company and being self-employed are associated with lower perceived downward mobility.** Public workers are more likely to report improvements in the economic situation, though this effect is statistically weak. This result certainly contradicts previous findings in the literature (e.g. Tortia (2008)), although previous results have focused in developed countries and did not analyzed periods with dramatic changes comparable to the transition lived in the ECA region. Considering the generalized reduction in the size of the state across countries in the region and the strong preference for public jobs<sup>14</sup> (EBRD 2010), being currently employed for the public sector may indicate that these workers were able to retain these positions and associated benefits. Hence, it is intuitive for them to perceive an improvement in their situation since, for many of their peers, reforms involved considerable undesired changes. In the case of self-employment, this can be signaling entrepreneurial ability and willingness to take risks, values highly regarded in a market economy.

# **Surprisingly, labor history does not play any significant role on the perceptions of economic mobility.**

The share of time in the labor force spent working for the public sector is negatively correlated with upward mobility, although the degree of statistical significance is weak. The share of time working for the private sector does not have a significant effect over the perceptions. When the sample is restricted to household heads and older than 35 years old workers the share of time employed in the public sector shows a positive effect over the probabilities of perceiving downward mobility (Table A3.2). The variable is defined as shares of time spent 14 According to data collected in the LiTS 2010 (EBRD 2010), 45% of workers 18+ in the region would prefer to work for a state‐owned enterprise (30%) or the public administration (15%). Being self‐employed comes behind with 25% of the sample, 20% would prefer in a private firm, and 10% does not know. While these results hide some regional disparities, it is clear also that it highlights a preference for the types of positions offered in the public sector.

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