In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life • Hacker News Board

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#141

Post by pc86 » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 3:12 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #113

pc86 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a "white trash southern town" isn't $35,000 a year likely to be solidly middle class? Just because there aren't a lot of $60-90,000 jobs doesn't mean that there is no middle class in a given area. I'm sure it broke a lot of teachers' hearts to see intelligent, gifted pupils throw away a better life to stay in a small town and get by on a HS diploma.

I wonder what my teachers think of me? I never felt the need to leave my rural community and "get by" just fine on my HS diploma. I remember in high school my peers would lament about getting out of here as soon as possible, but I never had the same affliction. I always felt I could bring the perks of the world to me, and feel like for the most part I have succeeded with that. I've maintained "big city" programming j…

Clearly there is a world of difference between being a telecommuting programmer earning a large salary and remaining in your hometown because you want to be a stay-at-home parent and follow God.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#142

Post by randomdata » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #141

randomdata wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what my teachers think of me? I never felt the need to leave my rural community and "get by" just fine on my HS diploma. I remember in high school my peers would lament about getting out of here as soon as possible, but I never had the same affliction. I always felt I could bring the perks of the world to me, and feel like for the most part I have succeeded with that. I've maintained "big city" programming j…

Clearly there is a world of difference between being a telecommuting programmer earning a large salary and remaining in your hometown because you want to be a stay-at-home parent and follow God.

I admittedly missed that context, but it doesn't exactly seem mutually exclusive either. Why can one not follow God, be a stay-at-home parent, while also being a telecommuting programmer (or whatever suits someone's interests and abilities)? Staying in a small town does not really seem to be the limiting factor.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#143

Post by yonran » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

fingerprinter wrote: post #66

I can't help but feel that this is about a couple of things: 1. education 2. income 3. influence I've travelled and lived all over the world. It always struck me odd that the poorer places in the world always seem to value religion over education (my perception), and it creates a nasty cycle where the majority of people don't/can't better themselves. I saw this first hand in the southern US where it was always God #1…

Oddly, the researchers’ Summary of Project Findings (http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/website/IGE/Executive%2...) says that on average, the religious correlation is the opposite: “Finally, some of the strongest predictors of upward mobility are correlates of social capital and family structure. For instance, high upward mobility areas tended to have higher fractions of religious individuals and fewer children raised by single parents.”

I’m not sure how what data on religious people they are referring to. The Bible Belt is clearly deep red in the income mobility map.