>Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. As far as I can tell, that stud

>Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. As far as I can tell, that study measured mobility by quintile. If the United States has a wider variance in income, the quintiles will be much wider, hence more difficult to move from one quintile to another. It seems reasonable to assume that the social welfare states of Western Europe and Canada have less variance in income distribution, and therefore it's easier to move from one quintile to another because the quintiles are smaller. Saying that there's greater mobility between quintile in Western Europe really only reflects the smaller variance in incomes in Western Europe. To set up an accurate cross-national comparison, one would have to construct a unified set of incomes for all people across all the studies countries. Then measure mobility of individuals between quintiles of the unified data set. Only that type of design would control for the different variance found in different national-economic contexts.