Mauricio Bucca

I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Previously, I was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute and earned my Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University. My research examines labor market inequalities, intergenerational mobility, and beliefs about inequality, using a combination of statistical modeling, causal inference strategies, experimental research, and computational methods. My scholarly agenda is structured around two complementary lines of inquiry: one focuses on structural aspects of inequality, including intergenerational income mobility, labor market disparities, and educational assortative mating; the other explores cultural perceptions of inequality, analyzing how beliefs about fairness shape attitudes toward inequality and social cohesion. My work has been published in journals such as Science Advances, Sociological Science, Sociological Methods & Research, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Socius, and Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Scientist, Science Daily, and other media outlets.

I am the principal investigator of the Fondecyt Iniciación project, “Inequality of Outcomes and Opportunity and Its Effects on the Legitimacy of Inequality and Social Cohesion,” and a lead researcher at the Millennium Nucleus for the Study of Labor Market Mismatch, Causes, and Consequences. In collaboration with Andrea Canales and Tania Hutt, I co-organize the Workshop on Inequality and Stratification Research and the Quantitative and Computational Social Science Research Group.

In parallel with my substantive research, I develop and apply advanced statistical techniques, including Bayesian models with structured dispersion for sibling correlations, Lasso regularization for log-linear model selection, micro-simulations for studying educational assortative mating, and large-scale online experiments to analyze beliefs about inequality.

🏕️ Outside of research, I enjoy music, road cycling, and exploring the outdoors.