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Why it's harder to earn more than your parents | The Economist
The EconomistSophie Pender, Mohsin Ismail, Kavika Smith, Christine, Novelette, Sally Grantham-McGregor, Dawn, Idrees Kahloun
- Relative social mobility in the 21st century is declining in many wealthy nations, with class of origin remaining a dominant predictor of future income.
- In the US, the probability of a child born at the bottom of the income ladder reaching the top is among the lowest in the developed world.
- A 9% probability exists in Britain for individuals to move from the bottom to the top of the income ladder; this is nearly 50% lower than the rates observed in Canada and Denmark.
- Rising income and wealth inequality in the US is identified as a primary driver of reduced mobility, with the top 1% share of taxable income rising from 9% in 1975 to over 18% by 2018.
- Absolute social mobility in the US has declined significantly since the post-WWII era, with the probability of a child earning more than their parents dropping from 90% for those born in the 1940s to 50% for those born in the 1980s.
- The shift from manufacturing to service-based industries has made university education the primary determinant of income, disproportionately disadvantaging those without degrees.
- A new cohort of UK state schools, such as the NCS in Newham, London, reports a 95% university attendance rate for students who are largely from low-income backgrounds or eligible for free school meals.
- Private school influence in the UK elite university system is declining, with private school pupils comprising 40% of Oxford and Cambridge admissions in 2016, dropping to nearly 30% by 2020.
- The US remains an outlier for practicing legacy admissions; data indicates that 43% of white students admitted to Harvard between 2014 and 2019 did not meet academic merit criteria alone.
- Following a legal challenge led by Kavika Smith, the University of California system officially dropped SAT scores from its admissions process to address biases favoring wealthier students.
- Research in Jamaica demonstrated that early childhood interventions involving weekly home visits with homemade educational toys increased earnings for participants by 25% after 20 years and 43% after 30 years compared to a control group.
- The Opportunity Atlas project reveals that geographic location significantly impacts mobility, with children in Iowa and Nebraska showing the highest mobility rates, while those in Hoke County, NC, are projected to earn only $22,000 by age 35.
- Programs aiding the relocation of families from low-opportunity neighborhoods, such as those in Seattle, show that children moving to higher-opportunity areas can expect to earn $12,000 more annually as adults.
- Despite the success of location-based interventions, advocates caution that moving populations is too labor-intensive and costly to serve as a scalable national solution.
- The "93% Club," a network for students from state schools in the UK, has expanded to nearly 50 university branches to provide social capital and professional mentorship previously inaccessible to working-class students.
- Economic data suggests that increasing social mobility can be fiscally self-sustaining, as higher adult earnings from mobility initiatives result in increased tax revenues that offset program costs.
- Post-pandemic economic shocks have elevated social mobility and income inequality to the forefront of global policy discussions, creating a unique opportunity for structural reform.