It is too bad that the graph doesn't include the USA. That would clearly show how much better social mobility is in Canada than the USA.
Which is an important but under-appreciated fact.
Which is an important but under-appreciated fact.
For those born in the US, there's less movement and that's exactly what would be expected in a system that has been relatively meritocratic for multiple generations. Regardless of whether of the previous generation excelled due to cultural or hereditary reasons, their children will likely inherit both. Children also inherit money, which is a factor. However, if money were the primary factor, poor immigrant families would tend to remain poor and they don't.
The times when there's a great deal of mobility between generations of native populations is when there's a change in structural obstacles (or benefits). This can be seen especially clearly in Jewish populations in the US when various discriminatory regulations were removed early last century or with (ethnically) Asian Americans later in the century. In both cases, many families made rapid gains in relative income and wealth. In the subsequent generation, children of the winners generally kept winning and metrics of "social mobility" displayed a decline, even though society had become objectively fairer than it had been two generations before.
This isn't to say society is "fair" now, only that simple inter-generational economic mobility comparisons poorly answer the question of where a conscientious person with no money would have the best chance of success.
Well, tons of poor latinos and other would argue otherwise.
The immigrants children born in the US would be american. not immigrants. However, they are obviously going to get a lot of culture from their parents. They might get a second language when young, different customs, and more than likely different food. This was my grandmother. Most of her brothers were educated and lived decent lives, most definitely better than their parents.
My father - and his brothers and sisters - were split in how well they've done. The older children did just as well as the previous generation. They had less influence from the grandmother, but still carried a lot of traditions forward. The younger children had a rougher life after their father died (the older children were better able to cope).
My generation is likely the last that'll carry some of the traditions forward. We are basically normal folks. We have fond memories of eating Syrian food at Grandma's house, and most of us can cook a bit of it. It isn't often enough for our children to have fond memories of it. My generation really isn't passing that stuff along, even though it is part of our memory, our identities, and we might even talk about it in casual conversation. It just isn't a distinct enough part of our identity to pointedly pass along.
Unfortunately as a society we are running in the other direction. :-(
If you read the FA, you see the same is the case in Canada. In general though the US has very low mobility for a developed nation. Canada is fairly average for a developed nation.
You also have to remember that social mobility can be skewed by wealth distribution. Let's say a person goes from earning $75K to $100K in Canada. That might mean you moved from the 3rd quintile to the 5th quintile. But the same person moving from $75K to $125K in the US might only move from the 3rd quintile to the 4th, even though the US person overall improved their situation more.
For example if you look for people worth $30million+ per million people, Canada has 186 while the USA has 126. That's about a third more per capita.
And watching the video, you find that 42% of the children of the bottom 20% in the USA wind up in the bottom 20%. Very little of Canada does anything like that poorly.
http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways-...
The US does not do well on social mobility. Generally, poor families stay poor and rich families stay rich.
Also to be clear, the problem you cite does not exist. This is a percentage relationship between father-son earnings and doesn't have anything to do with quintiles or the magnitude of those earnings.
And after a few google searches, it appears that others have called out the challenges as well[1] and tried to work with other data sets. This analysis found very little different in income mobility between the US and EU and overall...
Canada has the most downward mobility while the U.S. has the least, with Sweden in the middle. We find some differences in upward mobility but these are somewhat smaller in magnitude.
[1]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537114...
And I expect that your theory is right. :-(
Your point still stands of course, I just thought that should be pointed out.
I'm only partially kidding; all the best people in my class making the most money moved to the US immediately upon graduation.