Qualitative analysis reveals that financial and caregiving support from high-status individuals is driven by a sense of family obligation, suggesting profound social implications.
What drives upwardly mobile individuals to support their families of origin, and what are the consequences of such support? This article examines how upward social mobility intersects with kin support in contemporary Chile. Drawing on sixty interviews with individuals who have attained high-status professions, it finds that such support is driven by a deeply internalized sense of duty to maintain close family ties. Kin assistance takes financial, occupational, and caregiving forms, often extending beyond the nuclear family. Yet these obligations carry significant emotional, financial, and professional costs—particularly for women. In response, individuals develop strategies to manage and delimit kin demands. By shedding new light on the normative drivers and multifaceted consequences of kin support, the article contributes to a relational understanding of social mobility and calls for a broader, comparative agenda on how mobility unfolds in contexts marked by high inequality, weak welfare provision, and strong familistic norms.
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Malik Fercovic Cerda (2025) studied this question.
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