Middle-Class Fractions within Professional Workers in Chile: The Persistence of Occupational Closure and the Limits of Social Mobility

The increasing levels of income inequality in post-industrial societies have been linked to an unprecedented demand for highly skilled workers to continuously drive knowledge and technological development (Acemoglu, 2002; Gasparini & Lustig, 2011; Morris & Western, 1999). Scholars have explored the complex relationship between education as a means of social and economic advancement and, paradoxically, as a primary driver of wage inequality (Brown, 2013; Rodríguez‐Castelán et al., 2022). These trends challenge traditional understandings of meritocracy, social mobility, and economic progress.

Given the promotion of higher education as the major driver for social mobility and economic security, this paper scrutinises the role of professional occupations as social class markers and their internal fractioning in recent years. The analysis delves into the Chilean case, where the expansion of higher education has paralleled the reduction of inequality indices such as the Gini coefficient. While this might suggest a move toward a more egalitarian society (Torche, 2005), the massive social protests in 2019, as well as research on structural issues of inequality, laid bare the shortcomings of the current neoliberal economic model, raising questions regarding the true nature of social progress and the stability of the new middle-classes (Garcés, 2019; Méndez & Gayo, 2018; PNUD, 2017).

Using data from CASEN, a national household survey, the results from a latent class analysis revealed the presence of at least three distinct classes within the professional occupations: insecure, middle-class, and elite professionals. To better understand the composition of these groups, the analysis includes in-depth interviews with six individuals, two from each sub-class, to explore their occupational trajectories further. The findings challenge the narrative that education acts as a leveller of inequality, instead highlighting the enduring barriers to upward mobility and the role of professional closure in maintaining class hierarchies, especially within neoliberal economies in the Global South.