Is zipcode destiny ?

Americans tend to be optimistic, while Europeans tend to be too pessimistic. Americans overestimate social
mobility in their country but in Europe, climbing the ladder is easier than most people believe.

Intergenerational mobility refers to changes in social status between different generations within the same
family. We can thus understand that social immobility raises political and especially social issues. If social
mobility is threatened it would mean that the society gradually turns into a caste society in which one will
remain all his/her life in his/her birth social group.

As (intergenerational) social mobility becomes increasingly difficult and rare in the US, economists are
seeking to know and understand the reasons for this decline.

What are the causes of social immobility ? Why is it growing or at least why has it not diminished since the
70s? Is it because in the US social inequalities are greater, are more impassable, or because the
government is not doing enough to reduce social inequalities ?

In this article from The Economist entitled Is zipcode destiny published on May 16, 2020, two leading
economists present two viewpoints/ideas/explanations on social immobility in the USA:

-Economist Raj Chetty explains social immobility by the neighbourhood in which an individual grew up.
Using MTO's experience of randomly helping very poor families move to less poor neighbourhoods, he has
shown that depending on the neighbourhood in which an individual grew up, he or she is more or less likely
to attend university and thus have a higher income as an adult.

We understand that we are in fact raising a problem of social equality. It shows that segregation in America
is becoming less about race and more about money (even if some neighbourhoods combine both with
racial and social segregation, such as a large black community in a poor neighbourhood for example). Over
the same period economic segregation has increased as impoverished and wealthy Americans are
increasingly sorted into different neighbourhoods. Rich Americans are more likely than ever to live near the
rich; poor near poor. They live in more or less troubled neighbourhood and their children attend
neighbourhood schools with varying degrees of educational quality, they are more or less victims of
frequent, and often violent, intervention by the police ….

I think this is fairly well illustrated in the 2007 American drama film Freedom Writers in which immigrant
children live under racial tension in their neighbourhood and at school. In this unstudied environment, many
teachers seem to have already given up, as do the students.

-The economist James Heckman believes the "chain of neighbourhood" is far from being the only
explanation for the social immobility of the poorest because the empirical studies Mr. Chetty has conducted
are not perfectly reliable and there are limits to his theory.

There are other explanations, some of which are deeper, such as family structure, exposure to violence/
crime and the quality of education. All of these have a great influence on social mobility.

Taking into account only the neighbourhood of origin is a serious mistake because it overlooks all the other
factors that are also factors of social inequality.

However, both ideas/points of view have their limits but more than a clash between two leading
economists, they offer through their research tracks of reflection on what influences social mobility.

Five factors that were correlated with differences in social mobility in different parts of America: residential
segregation ; the quality of schooling ; family structure (how many children live with only one parent) ;
“social capital” (such as taking part in community groups); and inequality (particularly income gaps among
those outside the top 1%). Social mobility is higher in integrated places with good schools, strong families,
lots of community spirit and smaller income gaps within the broad middle class.

Even if they disagree on some points, I think their ideas come together in the end. Indeed, it is often in poor
neighbourhoods that stability, at least family stability, is rarer.

Opportunities for poor Americans are diminishing and one of the factors that keep poor native-born people
in impoverished places is neighbourhoods ties including family and friends.

Now we can think, what the government do to help children from poor family, but it seems that more than
anywhere else, it is difficult to climb the social ladder if you are very poor.

“MERITOCRACY” is seen as a measure of progress. In the dark ages, the dumb scions of the aristocracy
inherited their seats on cabinets and on the boards of great companies. These days, people succeed through
brains and hard work.Yet the man who invented the word meant it as a pejorative term.
Michael Young, a British sociologist painted a futuristic picture of a dystopian Britain, where the class-based
elite had been replaced with a hierarchy of talent. Democracy was dispensed with. Clever children were
siphoned into special schools and showered with resources.
This is a very American paradox. This phenomenon is happening throughout the rich world, where elites
have proved remarkably adept at passing on privilege down the generations. But it is most acute in America.
Whereas most OECD countries spend more on the education of poor children than rich ones, in America the
opposite is true. In higher education stiff fees in America mean that many poor children never get to
university, and too many of those who do drop out. The preferences that elite American universities give to
well-connected children, either because their parents went to the university themselves or because they
have given money. Despite all the spending on financial aid, the Ivies are still doing a poor job of finding and
educating bright, poor students.