Moving Up: How to Think About Social Mobility
So, you were born in Small Town, USA some years ago. Your parents were doing okay, not dirt poor but unable to afford many luxuries like a second car or iPhones for everyone in the household. You grew up lower middle class, maybe working class. How are you doing now? Do you think you’ll end up better off materially than your parents? Social mobility is what that’s called. It can be harder or easier to achieve because of a variety of things, like intelligence, childhood social environment, culture, and economic change.
Since most people think being able to move up in the world is a good thing, challenges to doing can be problematic. Liberals and conservatives have ideas about that, about why moving up is harder or easier. You may hear some of these ideas coming from politicians and activists.
Social Mobility for Sociologists and You
Most anyone can get ahead but not everyone has equal chances of doing so. That is a lesson revealed in dozens of social science research projects over the decades. But, before you can appreciate that research, you need to know how to think about social mobility. An example is in order here.
Imagine a town of 1,000 people and 500 households. The median household income is $60,000, meaning half of our town’s 500 households bring in less and half, more. This figure alone doesn’t tell us anything about mobility, or inequality either.
Let’s break down the median income a bit differently — and this will be super important in a minute so please excuse all of the numbers.
- The poorest 20% of households (100) bring in an average of $20,000.
- The 20% just above them earn an average of $40,000.
- The next group of 100 households has a median household income of $60,000.
- The second most affluent group of households has a median income of $90,000.
- The high-earning 20% (100 households again) make an average of $130,000.
Thing of those five groups (quintiles in statistics lingo) as social classes. Social mobility is about moving up or down the hierarchy. Of course, people can do that. Jane Citizen, born in the bottom quintile could move up a couple of levels, perhaps into the top quintile.
Now, how likely is it that Jane Citizen will move into that high-earning 20%? What factors will help or hurt Ms. Citizen in her efforts?
There is another kind of social mobility that arguably matters even more — intergenerational social mobility. As the name suggests, this is about kids doing better than their parents. Say Jane Citizen makes it into the fourth quartile and her household’s earning power stays stuck there. Not a bad life, right? She and her husband have been making low six figures for many years. The odds arepretty good their kids can stay there or move up to the top quintile. Right?
That’s the kind of scenario most parents would love to see, upward mobility. That’s probably even more true with parents born in the bottom 20% or the group just above it.
Getting Ahead in America and Abroad
Someone’s ability to climb from the lowest 20% to the top 20% hinges on a wide variety of factors, personal and otherwise. Education is a major factor here, as the higher your education the more your earning potential tends to be. This is because the next major factor in social mobility is your job. Skilled trades tend to pay more than unskilled work pays. Professional degrees tend to be worth more than undergraduate degrees.
In addition to education and occupation, some personal traits may play a big role. Intelligence can’t be ignored. Personality traits like the ability to tolerate frustration may play a role as well, but things going on in our social environment have a big role to play.
Everyone lives in a world shaped by economic and cultural forces that may work to their benefit. This is less true in societies with where racism is institutionalized, for example. Economic changes may take away opportunities more quickly than new opportunities emerge. In the late 20th century many Western industrial nations began to deindustrialize. Good union jobs that let a young man buy a car at 19 and a house at 25 began drying up. While new possibilities emerged, these may have been irrelevant. How easily can someone shift from building appliances to setting up corporate computer networks?
In early 2024, artificial intelligence apps promise to dramatically change many jobs in digital marketing, content creation, and writing. Will people who have skills in those fields be able to keep their jobs? Will something offering similar pay be available? Perhaps.
None of this is to deny that Jane and Joe Worker need to take some responsibility for their lives. They do need to update their skills or start a side business, or something. Yet, how many people can do this successfully? How many “full stack developers” and UX/UI designers can the nation employ in the coming years?
In short, if social mobility isn’t what it could be, it will take more than teaching Jane and Joe to hustle more. Economic and social policies have to address the big forces that make it harder for the Janes and Joes of the world to get ahead.
Getting Ahead is a Social Thing
Social mobility for you or your children comes down to numerous cultural, economic, sociological, and psychological variables. Pretending otherwise will make it hard to accept policy ideas that can help. Conservatives realize this when they call for tariffs to protect American workers or demand that Congress take steps to bring back manufacturing jobs.
When politicians and activists promote a simple and “compelling” solution, watch out. Those guys could have a good idea, or they could be promoting something that helps them.
All of these comments also apply to social inequality. The average person can take steps to acquire wealth and pass it on (as described above) but the unequal distribution of wealth in many countries may be too much for average folk to overcome by simply trying harder.
I hope you enjoyed this short introduction to social mobility. If so, please clap and share! Oh, and consider subscribing to Social Pollution.
