Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 101 posts

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#31

Post by maxxxxx »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #24
jessriedel wrote: post #16

This phenomena (that children are not statistically independent of their grandparents even when controlling for parents) has already been found to be robustly true in Europe and some eastern countries. Gregory Clark wrote a book on it that was widely discussed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book) The point is that families transmit something across multiple (> 5 generations) that's responsible for…

It's genetics, why is this such a mystery? The whole point of evolution is that you pass on good traits. When people do well, they pair with other people who are good genetically, and through the generations, their children do well. Why is this such a mystery?

It's not only genetics. Parents who do well know how the system works and pass that knowledge on to their children. Children who come from poverty have a lot of learning to do and it's hard to do this without role models.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#32

Post by RodericDay »

jimmywanger wrote: post #27
RodericDay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have to weigh the removal of that incentive against the degree to which the ability to give your offspring a leg up makes the system inefficient and unappealing see Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers on eg. inheritance taxes: http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/estate_tax_... > "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation,…

We're not even talking about money at this point. The study is talking about educational level of children vs. the education of parents and grandparents. It stands to reason that highly educated parents produce highly educated children - they've been through college, probably know what to do in college wrt financial aid, and probably have more books in the house and talk about more educated things around the dinner t…

I'm talking generally about "removing the incentive", using the estate tax as an example of removing an incentive that may nevertheless be desirable for efficient market outcomes.

I'm not saying that it maps out 1:1 with this situation. Just observing that the fact that something being a positive incentive isn't sufficient to justify its persistence.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#33

Post by icantdrive55 »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #24
jessriedel wrote: post #16

This phenomena (that children are not statistically independent of their grandparents even when controlling for parents) has already been found to be robustly true in Europe and some eastern countries. Gregory Clark wrote a book on it that was widely discussed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book) The point is that families transmit something across multiple (> 5 generations) that's responsible for…

It's genetics, why is this such a mystery? The whole point of evolution is that you pass on good traits. When people do well, they pair with other people who are good genetically, and through the generations, their children do well. Why is this such a mystery?

Because it's just wrong.

Let's just take to first Dingus that comes to mind. Eric Trump, or that brother, for instance.

Is there one person here that feels Uday, or Qusay wouldn't be mixing paint at HD, if not for that father?

I can do this all day.

(I live in Marin County. The place your boss will retire to, if he hits it big. I know these people. I know their kids. Their kids success is nothing more than wealth. Wait--it's a bit more complicated. They do have access to dad's friends, acquaintances, lawyer/accountant cronies, and then there's aunt Helen. Who's always there to help out when daddy's love child is lost in life.)

Wow--HN is losing it?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#34

Post by zeroer »

thucydides wrote: post #30

Here's a crazy thought that's illegal to think nowadays. If you want to avoid crazy, illegal thoughts, please stop reading. Maybe - just maybe - we're not all equal cyphers at birth like we learned in school. Maybe genes are part of the reason a successful person's daughter is successful. Maybe important character traits are heritable. Maybe the 20+ years we spend being raised is less consequential to our character a…

This sounds like a testable hypothesis -- that the effects of genetics should be separable from the effects of upbringing via twin and adoption studies. In fact, I'd wager it's already been done.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#35

Post by RodericDay »

thucydides wrote: post #30

Here's a crazy thought that's illegal to think nowadays. If you want to avoid crazy, illegal thoughts, please stop reading. Maybe - just maybe - we're not all equal cyphers at birth like we learned in school. Maybe genes are part of the reason a successful person's daughter is successful. Maybe important character traits are heritable. Maybe the 20+ years we spend being raised is less consequential to our character a…

I find it honestly disturbing how, throughout the ages, there's always people desperately trying to justify to themselves their exalted station in society.

It's super easy to find examples of old white men talking about how women couldn't handle voting because the blood drain through their ovaries, or racists talking about how the cranial differences explain the difference in intelligence.

And yet in 2016, in the face of massive blatant inequality in living standards between races, and provable systemic obstacles, you still have tons of nerdy LessWrong types talking about how it's time to own up to genetics.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#36

Post by bronz »

why does the article never consider IQ to be a factor in success? in almost every success story that i come across, the story is about someone who is obviously very smart. and rags to riches stories, stories where a successful person bootstraps him or herself out of an impoverished family, almost always begin with accounts of their gifted childhood.

also, is it not obvious that social mobility is fucked? without unskilled labor, you need capital to get a nice job or start a business.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#37

Post by losteverything »

reqctomaniac wrote: post #28
losteverything wrote: post #4

Anyone have a link to the complete study? I would love to know how they link 3,4 And 5 generations, being an amateur genealogist. Speaking personally, Family pressure to obtain degrees came from gggGF. But "women don't go to college." meant the females went only After their mother paid. (And could). Marrying "up" was the only obvious decision looking back on female members of our tree (from 1853-1946)

There is a link in the article - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22635.pdf Seems like they used a PIK number created by the census bureau to track individuals and same address to create parent-child link.

Thanks. But I got a denied Access.

What is a PIK?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#39

Post by intjk »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #17

A diverse society over time will converge to where people's abilities are. As t -> infinity, social mobility -> 0

Is "ability", or market value, static over time? I don't think it is, wrt both an individual's ability to change learn and grow (short term), as well as natural changes in the market (long term).

This doesn't disprove your statement--social mobility can still go to zero--but I think it's something that people can, should, and do strive to make as large as possible, be it individually, through legislation, etc.

Post reply on HN