The question whether a socially mobile society is conducive to subjective well-being (SWB) has
rarely been investigated. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the SWB effects of intergenerational
earnings mobility and equality in education at the societal level. Using socio-demographic information on
44 000 individuals in 30 OECD countries obtained from the World Values Survey, this study shows that
living in a socially mobile society is conducive to individual life satisfaction. Differentiating between
perceived and actual social mobility, we find that both exert rather independent effects, particularly in their
interplay with income inequality. We identify a positive interaction of perceived social mobility that
mitigates its overall SWB lowering effect, supporting Alesina et al. (2004). In contrast, a high degree of
actual social mobility yields an overall impact of income inequality that is SWB lowering, while for low
social mobility the effect of inequality is positive. These interactions hold stronger for pre-transfer than
post-transfer income inequality. Actual social mobility appears to be appreciated only by conservative
persons, while leftist oriented individuals are indifferent. Robustness is tested using a world sample.
