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Immigrants often bring with them the stigma of poverty, lack of opportunities and, sometimes, even persecution. However badly skewed the ladder to the top is in

Immigrants often bring with them the stigma of poverty, lack of opportunities and, sometimes, even persecution. However badly skewed the ladder to the top is in America, it is still the most advanced implementation of a merit-based system. It's no surprise that immigrant parents impress that on their children very early and may sacrifice more of their own well-being to ensure their kids take full advantage of it. An explanation for the waning of that powerful drive could be that parents of 2nd and 3rd generations become complacent. Probably pushing the envelope but as a huge "Sopranos" fan, I'm often reminded of Tony's talk about the strong, silent type "now, that was an American!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZQ9r7rogNg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZQ9r7rogNg

martythemaniak 16y ago
Sorry to disappoint, but the data says otherwise - amongst advanced countries America has some of the lowest social mobility recorded. Your ladder is much less skewed in other places. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/28/38335410.pdf http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/28/38335410.pdf I know this is one of the sacred cows of American Mythology, but should it be surprising given the differences between inner city and white suburban schools, legacy admissions and any other number of differences between rich and poor kids?
- BlazingFrog 16y ago
  I have obviously not had the time to read that report (thanks for the link) but you seem to have left an important word out of your broad assessment about America's alleged "low social mobility record": intergenerational. This is the first sentence of the summary (p. 4): "This report surveys the research in OECD countries on intergenerational mobility – i.e. the extent to which key characteristics and life experiences of individuals differ from those of their parents." You may have wrongly assumed that my observation about the ladder was comparing one's social achievement to one's parents but that was not the point I was trying to make. It was a more general point about how who/what you are has less of an impact than anywhere else on your chances to succeed.
  - martythemaniak 16y ago
    But that's what intergenerational studies like this deal with. In essence, the question it tries to answer is "You're born in a poor household, where do you end up"? In a meritocratic society with equal opportunities children from poor households should be able to end up in all income brackets - some in the top, some in the middle, some in the poor etc. The more uniform the distribution the better. What this study shows is that if you're born poor in America, the odds are very much stacked against you and while no country has an even distribution, other countries do better. Why study children? Well, social mobility implies a passage of time - to get a clear picture you need to track people over time to see the actual movement and nothing gives a better picture than an entire lifetime.
    - pfedor 16y ago
      In a meritocratic society with equal opportunities children from poor households should be able to end up in all income brackets - some in the top, some in the middle, some in the poor etc. The more uniform the distribution the better. Have you even read yummyfajitas' reply? Regardless of whether you believe in nature or nurture, I imagine you wouldn't deny that intelligent and hard working people's children are more likely to be intelligent and hard working. Therefore, in a society where these traits on average lead to an increase in the social status, you should expect some stickiness. A uniform distribution would prove that a person's merits have no impact on their success in life.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Low intergenerational mobility does not necessarily contradict meritocracy, unless you assume merit based factors are completely non-hereditary [1]. All the evidence I've seen suggests parental merit [2] is strongly correlated with child merit. Further, if I understand their methodology, they are measuring movements across quintiles. This is flawed, since the quintiles are much more spread out in the US (and UK) than in many other countries. In the US, the top is about 12x the bottom, in Sweden, about 6x. See this article which compares the US to Sweden: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distribution-in-us-and-sweden.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio... [1] Before you say the word "genetic", let me point out that heritable != genetic. [2] I'm using "merit" to mean intelligence and conscientiousness.

martythemaniak 16y ago

Sorry to disappoint, but the data says otherwise - amongst advanced countries America has some of the lowest social mobility recorded. Your ladder is much less skewed in other places. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/28/38335410.pdf http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/28/38335410.pdf I know this is one of the sacred cows of American Mythology, but should it be surprising given the differences between inner city and white suburban schools, legacy admissions and any other number of differences between rich and poor kids?

BlazingFrog 16y ago
I have obviously not had the time to read that report (thanks for the link) but you seem to have left an important word out of your broad assessment about America's alleged "low social mobility record": intergenerational. This is the first sentence of the summary (p. 4): "This report surveys the research in OECD countries on intergenerational mobility – i.e. the extent to which key characteristics and life experiences of individuals differ from those of their parents." You may have wrongly assumed that my observation about the ladder was comparing one's social achievement to one's parents but that was not the point I was trying to make. It was a more general point about how who/what you are has less of an impact than anywhere else on your chances to succeed.
- martythemaniak 16y ago
  But that's what intergenerational studies like this deal with. In essence, the question it tries to answer is "You're born in a poor household, where do you end up"? In a meritocratic society with equal opportunities children from poor households should be able to end up in all income brackets - some in the top, some in the middle, some in the poor etc. The more uniform the distribution the better. What this study shows is that if you're born poor in America, the odds are very much stacked against you and while no country has an even distribution, other countries do better. Why study children? Well, social mobility implies a passage of time - to get a clear picture you need to track people over time to see the actual movement and nothing gives a better picture than an entire lifetime.
  - pfedor 16y ago
    In a meritocratic society with equal opportunities children from poor households should be able to end up in all income brackets - some in the top, some in the middle, some in the poor etc. The more uniform the distribution the better. Have you even read yummyfajitas' reply? Regardless of whether you believe in nature or nurture, I imagine you wouldn't deny that intelligent and hard working people's children are more likely to be intelligent and hard working. Therefore, in a society where these traits on average lead to an increase in the social status, you should expect some stickiness. A uniform distribution would prove that a person's merits have no impact on their success in life.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
Low intergenerational mobility does not necessarily contradict meritocracy, unless you assume merit based factors are completely non-hereditary [1]. All the evidence I've seen suggests parental merit [2] is strongly correlated with child merit. Further, if I understand their methodology, they are measuring movements across quintiles. This is flawed, since the quintiles are much more spread out in the US (and UK) than in many other countries. In the US, the top is about 12x the bottom, in Sweden, about 6x. See this article which compares the US to Sweden: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distribution-in-us-and-sweden.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio... [1] Before you say the word "genetic", let me point out that heritable != genetic. [2] I'm using "merit" to mean intelligence and conscientiousness.