Social Mobility in a High-Inequality Regime

Pablo Mitnik, Erin Cumberworth and David B. Grusky

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2016, vol. 663, issue 1, 140-184

Abstract: Are opportunities to get ahead growing more unequal? Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), it is possible to provide evidence on this question, evidence that is suggestive but must be carefully interpreted because the samples are relatively small. The GSS data reveal an increase in class reproduction among young and middle-age adults that is driven by the growing advantage of the professional-managerial class relative to all other classes. This trend is largely consistent with our new “top-income hypothesis†that posits that rising income inequality registers its effects on social mobility almost exclusively in the divide between the professional-managerial class and all other classes. We develop a two-factor model in which the foregoing effects of the inequality takeoff are set against the countervailing effects of the expansion of mass education. As the model implies, the trend in intergenerational association takes on a convex shape in the younger age groups, with the change appearing to accelerate in the most recent decade. These results suggest that the takeoff in income inequality may account in part for the decline in mobility.

Keywords: intergenerational mobility trends; social mobility; class mobility; income inequality takeoff; educational expansion; top-income hypothesis; professional-managerial class; inequality of opportunity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:663:y:2016:i:1:p:140-184

DOI: 10.1177/0002716215596971

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