The Socioeconomics of Parenting: Why Rich Parents Don't Matter
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Most dramatically:
Rich parents know interesting people. In many cases, wealth is a function of trust combined with ability. You don't (usually) get wealthy by hiding in your basement and never talking to anyone. So along the way, you meet good people and build relationships.
Conversely, the less wealthy a parent is, the less likely they are to form relationships with people who can benefit their children. At the extreme end: if your mom is a fry cook at McDonald's, what benefits are her colleagues able to offer you? How many of those connections can benefit your future?
On the other end, if your mom is Marissa Mayer, you're in much better shape. 14 and want a summer job? I bet she knows someone who could give you some interesting, mind-expanding paid work. 19 and looking for a college gig that can help you get a great job after your graduate? etc.
It's anecdotal, but growing up in a household that wasn't at all wealthy, I can point to this as the greatest disadvantage I faced. I wanted to learn programming, but we didn't know anyone who knew anything about that. I wanted to know anything at all about computers, and I was on my own. Not an insurmountable problem – I taught myself. But I know access to mentorship at an early age could have made a huge impact.
I know a girl who had big trouble with their family because she wanted to study medicine and become a surgeon (!) instead of studying business and managing the family investments.
Rich entrepreneurs are often not very intellectual, except for maybe tech and financial entrepreneurs. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Edit: That girl did become a surgeon after all, though.
Parents often get to decide who's in the peer group, though. Especially in the early years and especially for parents with money.
I often wonder how much of it is environmental. Why are the parents poor in the first place? Is this directly related to education? If so, it doesn't surprise me that children of parents that aren't educated (and don't stress education) are affected by this.
Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. The poor have a labor force participation rate about 1/3 that of the non-poor (20% vs 65%) and a full time labor force participation rate of about 1/5 that of the non-poor (10% vs 55%).
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf
A significant amount of the extra leisure time is spent watching TV.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
[edit: Hi downmodders, sorry for providing inconvenient facts.]
It also might help if you explain how a news release on the leisure metrics of employed persons and their families relates to the alleged leisure activities of these straw poor people.
There are very hardworking poor people and very lazy rich people, and not just the outliers.
It might help if you read the first paragraph of the document, rather than just the title.
As for the leisure metrics, see Table 11. It provides leisure time usage for workers (at various income levels) and non workers.
There are very hardworking poor people...
And the report I linked to tells you exactly how many there are (about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year).
And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons.
So how do you extract any semblance of a number of people who prefer leisure to working?
(about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year).
That is a huge assumption.
You are correct. I don't have data to answer all your questions, though I do deal with children and the elderly here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441
Feel free to assume the one set of numbers I am unable to find in 5 minutes of google completely debunks me. After all, all the facts we do not know must support our preconceived notions, right?
And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons.
Again: please read the first paragraph. It explains that "working poor" includes the unemployed (people looking for work, but who have not found it).
That is a huge assumption.
Please learn the difference between "definition" and "assumption". I don't know how you define "hardworking", so I chose a definition, explained what I meant, and presented facts concerning that definition.
Your last statement sums up the cognitive dissonance that your argument creates. You are creating your own definition of a word which already has one.[1] If you don't know anyone who is not hardworking, yet has managed to remain employed for at least a year, you're not paying attention.
As for the "cognitive dissonance", your definition of hardworking is circular:
Hardworking: (adj) industrious, tireless, untiring (characterized by hard work and perseverance)
Industrious: (adj) hardworking, industrious, tireless, untiring (characterized by hard work and perseverance)
In a fact based discussion, one usually needs to construct a more precise definition of colloquial terms. There is no effective procedure for determining whether individual X is hardworking by the dictionary definition, and thus we cannot count the number of hardworking people. I constructed a definition which a) is measurable and b) which roughly agrees with my intuitive notion of what "hardworking" means. If you don't like it, replace "hardworking" with "Category H" in my previous post.
Sorry if my attempts at precision and use of facts interfere with your desire to confuse things and revert back to your preconceived notions.
As much as I'd like to claim authorship, I didn't write the dictionary. If you'd like to argue about whether the terms mean what you want them to mean, or if they lead you into a logical endless loop, you're wasting your energy.
There is no effective procedure for determining whether individual X is hardworking by the dictionary definition, and thus we cannot count the number of hardworking people.
So we agree.
I constructed a definition which ... which roughly agrees with my intuitive notion of what "hardworking" means.
Ok. so who is reinforcing their preconceived notions again?
Believing in something doesn't make it true.
Reusing global variable names in your local scope can cause really insidious errors. Just sayin.
You apparently still live in the wonderful lalaland, where human beings are perfectly rational and do not suffer from segregation, humiliation and other social problems.
I'll suggest that you try to see life from a less privileged person point of view from time to time, instead of the Chicago school of economics only. That may make you a slightly more charitable person.
You are correct - I did assume poor people avoid work out of rational utility maximization (i.e., I assumed poor people's choices revealed their preferences). You may be right - poverty might be caused by irrationality. I made no claim whatsoever about segregation, humiliation or other social problems.
Come to think of it, if the poor are irrational, that might also explain why their children do not become as intelligent as the children of the rich.
I don't think anybody in their right mind believes seriously this to be true, nowadays. I mean out of the crazy free-market fanatics and maybe Goldman-Sachs bankers. I'm clearly not interested in proving you wrong, I've got way better fish to fry than convincing wingnuts.
That leave 45% for whom it is a matter of leisure, as you say. However, that study doesn't provide information about how much of that 45% is disabled, and how many are elderly, two more groups disproportionately predisposed towards poverty.
If you're being downvoted, it's because you keep bringing up a very straight-forward study and drawing a very extreme social conclusion from it.
That's a calculation that took me 2 minutes. If you really cared about facts, you would have done it yourself. But I guess it's safer to raise questions and assume the answers support your views, rather than actually look into the data.
...and how many are elderly, ...disproportionately predisposed towards poverty.
Please stop making stuff up. The poverty rate among children is 27%, working age adults is 18%, and the elderly is 14%.
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=10&ca...
As for the disabled, if you truly believe that the numbers will contradict my case, why don't you post them? (I'm not going to do all your research for you.)
You can deduce this based on revealed preferences - I've been either working or looking for work for my entire adult life. Similarly, revealed preferences suggest that most of the poor prefer no work + no pay to work + pay.
Who takes bus at 4 in the morning to clean the toilets at your office and leave before you arrive at 8? The poor. Who does two different, hard and unfulfilling jobs to make end meet? The poor. Who has to spend 12 hours far from home but is paid only 3 hours? The poor. The poor have it much less easy than you and I, and your self-satisfied condescending attitude is sickening.
Money can take care of some things, and the things it helps are nice, but I think it's important for us to have some perspective.
Wealth comes with its own worries and some of those that don't have these worries ought to be grateful that they don't. Beneath its luster, wealth is often regarded as a destroyer. Think about it: of the the few that are capable of obtaining wealth, fewer still are able to bear it without destroying their own life or the lives of many surrounding. Wealth comes with burdens. Can you bear it?
What are you talking about? This guy takes the false and insulting stance that poor are so because they're lazy (implying they somehow deserve it, somewhat further implying that there is some immanent justice in this world).
We should carefully, as usual, avoid anecdotes and concentrate on general trends. The overall figure is that poor people don't choose to be poor, and that they would live better if they weren't. The people who got rich chosed their fate, the fact that they're happy with it or not is largely irrelevant here. That's the difference between being alienated / exploited, or not. These problems are of different scales and call for different remedies.
See this fantastically interesting document - if you want to know how many poor households (or non-poor households) have (e.g.) a "Porch, Balcony or Deck", exposed wiring or have AC, the answers are all here.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf
The poor have it a bit worse than everyone else, but it's not that dramatic. Most of the poor have a house with plenty of space, a car, etc.
When an animal goes into a slaughterhouse, the goal is for them to be killed. When a human goes into a hospital the goal is for them to be healed. I would say that the practitioners in both establishments probably have very different reactions to their jobs.