Goldthorpe is sceptical, too, about the effect that educational policy can have on mobility rates. “More advantaged families will always use their resources to maintain their children’s competitive edge,” he told me. “This brings home the way in which inequalities of condition serve to maintain inequalities of opportunity.”
He now has an ally in Greg Clark, a Scottish-born professor of economics at the University of California, Davis—though, if anything, Clark’s message is even gloomier than Goldthorpe’s. In his new book “The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility“, Clark argues that conventional ways of measuring social mobility between generations have prevented us from seeing that it has always been much slower than we tend (or like) to think. In the standard picture, mobility rates are also held to vary dramatically across societies, with more unequal societies, like the US or UK, having notably slower rates than, say, the Nordic countries. Clark’s research tells a rather different story. This is because, rather than tracking changes over two or three generations, as most conventional studies do, he tracks status over centuries using surnames as his guide.
His conclusions are chastening: “Underlying or overall social mobility rates are much lower than those typically estimated by sociologists or economists. The intergenerational correlation in all the societies for which we construct surname estimated… is between 0.7 and 0.9, much higher than conventionally estimated.
Social status is inherited as strongly as any biological trait, such as height.” The political implications of that are unsettling, to say the least.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/derbys...yhbpqhdXTo
I suppose it depends what you mean by fairness! Is the UK experience as far as social mobility is concerned similar to the US one?
In terms of the estimates in the book, they look identical. One of the things the book is emphasising is that in a society like the US, there’s a lot more private expenditure by people on education than in a society like Sweden, where it’s mostly provided by the state. So you’d expect, on normal accounts of social mobility, that the US would be a more rigid society with slower rates of mobility. But we don’t see any sign of that. So my interpretation here is that whatever educational system you set up, however fair and however open-access it is, there are just families that are better equipped to figure out what they need to do in the system, how you get ahead. And it’s impossible to stop those processes.
That sounds like a counsel of despair.
No doubt people will read this as a gloomy book. But the title, The Son Also Rises, was deliberately chosen to emphasise that there are some very positive elements in it. One of the things it emphasises is that the current data, which finds rapid social mobility in Sweden and slower social mobility in Britain and the US, and slower mobility still in South America, seems to suggest that you have massive social failures going on in a bunch of societies. The book finds no evidence of these failures because it finds very similar social mobility rates everywhere. Another implication is that if even in meritocratic Sweden you get very slow mobility, then it must be based largely on people’s abilities, aptitudes and drive. All that we’re discovering here is that we’re living in a surprisingly fair world—one in which, at birth, we could predict a surprising amount about your prospects. Is that a gloomy fact about the world?
Now the other thing I was thinking. Has there been a golden age of social mobility? I would think that the US from 1950's-1980's so rapid social mobility, but according to this research that's not true. This is an interesting topic to me.
I consider it a fundamental issue of liberty. If I work hard and wish to leave my children a lot of money so that they can do as they please then what should stop me?
Besides, if liberals actually cared about social mobility they wouldn't be hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us.
What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us? People who have spent time studying the issue wouldn't agree with that assessment. If anything you could make the argument that conservatives have turned a blind eye to the poor among us. Listen I have the ability to have an open mind here? Do you?
Are the poor pre destined or pre disposed to their condition? Do genes exist for IQ and determination. What environmental effects lead to urban decay? It's probably a combination of factors? What is unique about the Nordic countries and how they can have social mobility? Is it their govt? You could take this a number of ways and I will have an open mind.
It will be REAL interesting to do a study on social mobility among the regions of the US. THAT WOULD BE an eye opener!
(03-18-2014 10:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us? People who have spent time studying the issue wouldn't agree with that assessment. If anything you could make the argument that conservatives have turned a blind eye to the poor among us. Listen I have the ability to have an open mind here? Do you?
Are the poor pre destined or pre disposed to their condition? Do genes exist for IQ and determination. What environmental effects lead to urban decay? It's probably a combination of factors? What is unique about the Nordic countries and how they can have social mobility? Is it their govt? You could take this a number of ways and I will have an open mind.
You need only look at the results.
Those countries have functioning education systems for the poorest; we don't.
(03-18-2014 10:19 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]It will be REAL interesting to do a study on social mobility among the regions of the US. THAT WOULD BE an eye opener!
That would be entirely useless.
I call bunk on the article/study. Social mobility in Sweden isn't faster.
They have a class caste system in Sweden. They still have landed gentry, royals and an aristocracy.
I worked for a Swedish company and the upper crust of the company were all connected to the Swedish aristocracy. My boss' boss made it pretty well known that he was 63rd in line to the thrown. He had a family crest ring that he wore and everyone knew what that meant. (I'm not kidding)
We have friends from Sweden and when the husband wanted to marry the woman he loved, his parents frowned on the match because he was marrying a girl from the "wrong side of the canal." They did not attend the wedding.
Swedes have high taxes which actually keep people who didn't inherit wealth where they are socio-economically because their take home does not lend itself to building wealth. Small taxes to allow people to save and build wealth. The high taxes provide social services but work against building wealth. They do ensure "fairness."
I think both sides could find ammunition in this study.
(03-18-2014 10:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us? People who have spent time studying the issue wouldn't agree with that assessment. If anything you could make the argument that conservatives have turned a blind eye to the poor among us. Listen I have the ability to have an open mind here? Do you?
Are the poor pre destined or pre disposed to their condition? Do genes exist for IQ and determination. What environmental effects lead to urban decay? It's probably a combination of factors? What is unique about the Nordic countries and how they can have social mobility? Is it their govt? You could take this a number of ways and I will have an open mind.
Mach, you are a teacher. You know that some kids are smart and some dumb. I think a good bit of that is genetic. Smart parents
generally offspring smart kids and dumb parents
generally offspring dumb kids. It obviously doesn't hold for all cases individually.
I think where the environmental factors come into play to a much greater degree is in the determination realm. Determination and drive can make up for and even sometimes surpass innate intelligence. Plenty of ancedotal cases where a smart kid is lazy and doesn't succeed and the reverse where a kid isn't very smart but works themselves to success. I think a lot of that comes from parental expectations and just the kids watching how parents conduct their lives.
I think one advantage the nordic countries have had historically is relatively homogeneous societies. That leads to similar thoughts on how to successfully climb the social ladder. In other words - follow these steps, work hard and you can reasonably expect to have X amount of success. It's a known recipe.
From everywhere I've lived and the cultures that I've been exposed to, (completely anecdotal) the longer you have a group of people used to being where they are and comfortable with it, the harder it is to move along socially.
I also think we have a crisis of expectations too. Ultimately we get out of life what we put into it. I had a football coach that used to say that 70% of life is just showing up. It's the rare breed that puts in the 95-100%. You get out of life what you put into it.
(03-18-2014 10:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us?
Maybe because that's what's happening, and they are in control.
(03-18-2014 04:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: [ -> ] (03-18-2014 10:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us?
Maybe because that's what's happening, and they are in control.
It depends. In my state the Repubs are in control and aim to take their bite out of education.
(03-18-2014 04:43 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: [ -> ] (03-18-2014 04:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: [ -> ] (03-18-2014 10:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]What makes you think that liberals are hell bent on destroying education for the poorest among us?
Maybe because that's what's happening, and they are in control.
It depends. In my state the Repubs are in control and aim to take their bite out of education.
Repubs may be in control at the top. They are here in Texas.
But the bureaucrats are liberal democrats. And they are the ones screwing up the system.
(03-18-2014 11:12 AM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: [ -> ]From everywhere I've lived and the cultures that I've been exposed to, (completely anecdotal) the longer you have a group of people used to being where they are and comfortable with it, the harder it is to move along socially.
Great point. Social mobility in the US was high during various phases of westward expansion.
Moving to Phx 30 years ago was much different than moving there today.
Even now, moving to Silicon Valley is a lure b/c of the opportunity for upward mobility. But perhaps a better analogy was that the internet at first was often compared to the wild west. Lots of opportunity within unregulated territory.
Regulation, almost by definition, means limiting mobility.
(03-20-2014 01:57 PM)DrTorch Wrote: [ -> ] (03-18-2014 11:12 AM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: [ -> ]From everywhere I've lived and the cultures that I've been exposed to, (completely anecdotal) the longer you have a group of people used to being where they are and comfortable with it, the harder it is to move along socially.
Great point. Social mobility in the US was high during various phases of westward expansion.
Moving to Phx 30 years ago was much different than moving there today.
Even now, moving to Silicon Valley is a lure b/c of the opportunity for upward mobility. But perhaps a better analogy was that the internet at first was often compared to the wild west. Lots of opportunity within unregulated territory.
Regulation, almost by definition, means limiting mobility.
I agree. I think that the limitations caused by the desire to "stay local" can be worse than the limitations of regulation, however.
A lot of people just don't have the desire for mobility. I'd rather have what I have in the town I have roots in than upwardly mobilize myself to somewhere else.