By Neil Cummins
The London School of Economics and Political Science - November 8, 2013
Findings from a recent study by Neil Cummins and
a colleague suggest that social mobility in modern day England is
little greater than in pre-industrial times. Using surnames, they show
that intergenerational correlation in status is close to .85, meaning
that the progeny of the rich and poor will take over 20 generations, or
600 years, to converge to the average of society. This indicates that
there is very little effective policy that could affect an improvement
in social mobility in human societies.
When I ask students or friends about social mobility, the impression
they usually convey is one of a class system that is strongly inherited
over generations. There is a loose notion that we live in a world
stratified by timeless elites at the top, a persistent middle class and a
lower class, the kind usually ridiculed on reality TV. Academic
economists know better and for decades the data has shown that the
economy constantly ‘churns’ family fortunes over time. My students and
friends had it wildly wrong: Status does not persist in families beyond a
few generations. So are academic economists correct in this
characterization?
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