You are right. That paper does not show any difference wrt time. My bad. Actually another paper from the same author shows that social mobility has not changed.

You are right. That paper does not show any difference wrt time. My bad. Actually another paper from the same author shows that social mobility has not changed. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19844/w19844.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19844/w198... This website summarizes a couple of key points from other papers from that author: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01... > 3. Rates of relative intergenerational mobility in the U.S. appear to have been flat for decades > 4. It is a different story, however, for absolute mobility – which indicates how well a person does compared to their parents in absolute terms, rather than relative ones. On this measure of mobility, the last few decades have seen a sharp decline. So I guess a better way to put it would be to say that because of rising costs in healthcare and housing etc, the social ladder has become more slippery; an accident or a medical emergency has a much bigger chance to push you down the social ladder that from earlier years.