杏吧原创

It鈥檚 the American dream that upward social mobility can be achieved through hard work, irrespective of a person鈥檚 status at birth. New data shows that the reality is rather different, demonstrating that the socio-economic status of someone in the US is more strongly influenced by that of their parents than previously thought.

Sociologist Michael Hout of New York University examined data from more than 20,000 people collected between 1994 and 2016, ranked according to a socioeconomic index (SEI). This combines pay and credentials of people in an occupation to assign them a score on a scale from 0 to 100. Professionals such as judges and surgeons score close to 100, whereas people with low pay and few qualifications such as janitors, food prep workers and laundry workers score between 9 and 15.

In particular, Hout was interested in a measure of social mobility called intergenerational persistence, which shows how a person鈥檚 occupational status is influenced by the kind of job undertaken by their parents, grandparents, and so on.

Hout found that a person鈥檚 SEI score was strongly linked to that of their parents, rising on average by slightly more than half a point for each one-point increase in their parent鈥檚 status. This is because children born to parents with very low SEI scores tended to have higher SEI scores than their parents, and vice versa 鈥� and the trend in between was linear. So children born to parents with an SEI score of 10 can expect to achieve an SEI score of about 30, children born to parents with an SEI score of 20 can expect their SEI score to be about 35, and so on.

There was a gender effect too: for instance, a son born to a father with an SEI score of around 90 would typically have an SEI score around 70, but a daughter born to the same man would achieve an SEI score of around 62 on average.

Degree of inequality

This level of intergenerational persistence is higher than seen in other recent studies, which have typically focussed on income rather than occupation. 鈥淭he degree of inequality聽revealed in this study is the highest found in studies of this kind,鈥� says Hout.

Intergenerational persistence didn鈥檛 change over the 22 year period between 1994 and 2016. The study also showed that聽intergenerational persistence was much lower in single mother homes.

鈥淭he 鈥榣and of opportunity鈥� story Americans tell one another would imply intergenerational persistence close to zero,鈥� says Hout. Past research has estimated it to be between 0.35 and 0.45, out of a maximum score of one, which is the score if everyone followed the same profession as one of their parents. 鈥淢y estimates are greater than 0.5, implying a lot more intergenerational persistence in the US than most people think there is,鈥� says Hout.