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Begin New Search Topic Economic Mobility Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States

Author:
Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
We construct publicly available statistics on parents’ incomes and students’ earnings outcomes for each college in the U.S. using de-identified data from tax records. These statistics reveal that the degree of parental income segregation across colleges is very high, similar to that across neighborhoods. Differences in post-college earnings between children from low- and high-income families are much smaller among students who attend the same college than across colleges. Colleges with the best earnings outcomes predominantly enroll students from high-income families, although a few mid-tier public colleges have both low parent income levels and high student earnings. Linking these income data to SAT and ACT scores, we simulate how changes in the allocation of students to colleges affects segregation and intergenerational mobility. Equalizing application, admission, and matriculation rates across parental income groups conditional on test scores would reduce segregation substantially, primarily by increasing the representation of middle-class students at more selective colleges. However, it would have little impact on the fraction of low-income students at elite private colleges because there are relatively few students from low-income families with sufficiently high SAT/ACT scores. Differences in parental income distributions across colleges could be eliminated by giving low and middle-income students a sliding-scale preference in the application and admissions process similar to that implicitly given to legacy students at elite private colleges. Assuming that 80% of observational differences in students’ earnings conditional on test scores, race, and parental income are due to colleges’ causal effects – a strong assumption, but one consistent with prior work – such changes could reduce intergenerational income persistence among college students by about 25%. We conclude that changing how students are allocated to colleges could substantially reduce segregation and increase intergenerational mobility, even without changing colleges’ educational programs
Topic:
Income Inequality, Economic Inequality, Higher Education, and Economic Mobility
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Economic Mobility across Generations: Old versus New EU Member States

Author:
Roy van der Weide, Ambar Narayan, and Mario Negre
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Development Institute (DIE)
Abstract:
A country where an individual’s chances of success depend little on the socio-economic success of his or her parents is said to be a country with high relative intergenerational mobility. A government’s motivation for seeking to improve mobility is arguably two-fold. There is a fairness argument and an economic efficiency argument. When mobility is low, it means that individuals are not operating on a level playing field. The odds of someone born to parents from the bottom of their generation will be stacked against him or her. This is not only unfair but also leads to a waste of human capital, as talented individuals may not be given the opportunity to reach their full potential. Reducing this inefficiency will raise the stock of human capital and thereby stimulate economic growth. Since the waste of human capital tends to be concentrated toward the bottom of the distribution, the growth brought about by mobility-promoting policy interventions tends to be of an inclusive nature, in line with the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 on reducing inequality. For large parts of the world’s population, individual education is still too closely tied to the education of one’s parents, and there is a clear divide between the high-income and developing world. The patterns observed globally are also observed within Europe. Intergenerational mobility (or equality of opportunity) is visibly lower in the new member states (i.e. Eastern Europe), where national incomes are lower. Raising investment in the human capital of poor children towards levels that are more comparable to the investment received by children from richer families will curb the importance of parental background in determining an individual’s human capital. Countries at any stage of development can raise intergenerational mobility by investing more to equalise opportunities. The evidence strongly suggests that public interventions are more likely to increase mobility when: a) public investments are sufficiently large, b) are targeted to benefit disadvantaged families/ neighbourhoods, c) focus on early childhood, and d) when there is a low degree of political power captured by the rich.
Topic:
Education, Children, Inequality, Family, and Economic Mobility
Political Geography:
Europe, Global Focus, and European Union

3. The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class

Author:
Andrew J. Nathan
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The Chinese middle class differs from the middle class of Lipset’s classic theory in four ways. It is a smaller fraction of the population. It is directly or indirectly dependent on the state. It is new, with most of its members the first generation of their families to achieve this status. And its associational life is severely restricted. Although middle class persons have more prodemocratic attitudes than other Chinese, few are prepared to oppose the current regime. However, their support for the regime is fragile and subject to erosion, especially if economic conditions worsen.
Topic:
Class, Economic Mobility, and Middle Class
Political Geography:
China and Asia