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JRLeft

(7,010 posts)
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 02:04 PM Sep 2012

Exceptional Upward Mobility in the US Is a Myth, International Studies Show

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2012) — The rhetoric is relentless: America is a place of unparalleled opportunity, where hard work and determination can propel a child out of humble beginnings into the White House, or at least a mansion on a hill.

But the reality is very different, according to a University of Michigan researcher who is studying inequality across generations around the world.

"Especially in the United States, people underestimate the extent to which your destiny is linked to your background," says Fabian Pfeffer, a sociologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). Pfeffer is the organizer of an international conference on inequality across multiple generations being held September 13 and 14 in Ann Arbor.

"Research shows that it's really a myth that the U.S. is a land of exceptional social mobility."

Pfeffer's own research illustrates this point based on data on two generations of families in the U.S. and a comparison of his findings to similar data from Germany and Sweden. The U.S. data come from the ISR Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a survey of a nationally representative sample that started with 5,000 U.S. families in 1968.

He found that parental wealth plays an important role in whether children move up or down the socioeconomic ladder in adulthood. And that parental wealth has an influence above and beyond the three factors that sociologists and economists have traditionally considered in research on social mobility -- parental education, income and occupation.

"Wealth not only fulfills a purchasing function, allowing families to buy homes in good neighborhoods and send their children to costly schools and colleges, for example, but it also has an insurance function, offering a sort of private safety net that gives children a very different set of choices as they enter the adult world," Pfeffer says.

Read more at the link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905141920.htm

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Exceptional Upward Mobility in the US Is a Myth, International Studies Show (Original Post) JRLeft Sep 2012 OP
realistically, it takes a generation. or two. unblock Sep 2012 #1
And this isn't realistic anymore. JRLeft Sep 2012 #2
I believe the answer is that all children get a quality education and... Bonhomme Richard Sep 2012 #3

unblock

(51,974 posts)
1. realistically, it takes a generation. or two.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 02:12 PM
Sep 2012

for most people, the best they can hope for is to give their children the best advantages so that THEY have a shot at becoming rich.

to really get a GOOD shot at it, it takes two generations, because most people can't afford to get their kids into private prep schools and get them the kind of special help that makes them shoo-ins for ivy league educations, not to mention some business contacts and seed money. it still takes a lot of luck as well as hard work.

more realistically, most people can only hope their children will have a decent income, not hugely rich, but rich enough so that they can stretch and give the grandchildren that privileged start in life that's really the key to "exceptional social mobility".

Bonhomme Richard

(8,992 posts)
3. I believe the answer is that all children get a quality education and...
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 02:22 PM
Sep 2012

that includes removing the distractions to a good education such a diet, health, and a destructive home atmosphere. it also entails educators having the flexibility to alter curriculum to address special needs.
How to do that? I'm not that smart.

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