Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Just curious though, do you think that there is more upward mobility now than in that WWII to 1980 period? I feel like education alone over the past few decades has had an enormous impact in that regard, so that people who start out at minimum wage, unskilled positions, rise through the ranks faster and earn larger wages as a result?
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For the US at least, the data shows the opposite. Intergenerational Income Elasticity (basically how heavily a person's income is correlated to that of their parents) has risen sharply after 1980, nearly doubling from its low in the '50s and '60s. Canada is thankfully far better in that respect, with an IGE that's less than half the US's and one of the lowest in the industrialized world.
Though within the US, it's also very regional. I recall seeing something that showed that social mobility in the Western states (particularly in urban areas) was actually pretty decent, and not too far off Canada and some other European countries. But in the East (and particularly the South), it was basically as bad as it gets.