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Comment by koheripbal | Hacker News Reader

Can unequal outcomes be an indicator of unequal opportunity? Yes. Can unequal outcomes exist despite equal opportunity? Yes.

There are many non-intrinsic reasons for groups of individuals to not be equally represented.

The most obvious is human ethnic group migrations, and the most consistently studied is career-choice differences between men and women.

Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcomes - especially in only one or two generations after a migration. ...and in the case of gender differences in career interest, forcing equal outcomes is counter-productive. Humans are different. Different outcomes are evidence of diversity, not malice.

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> especially in only one or two generations after a migration.

Thats a perfect example of unequal opportunity. As much as we try to make excuses around it, the single biggest predictor of someone's lifetime income is their parents income. The fact of the matter is being rich provides opportunities and advantages being middle class doesn't and definitely not being poor, and there is little evidence to suggest that this corrects itself after a few generations. The fact is historically poor populations tend to stay that way, with those who escape being outliers.

People also absorb their parents' attitudes about things like work, diligence, handling money, honor, investing, value of education, etc. These have a large effect on their future lives.

> there is little evidence to suggest that this corrects itself after a few generations

On the contrary. The vast bulk of modern American citizens emigrated to America as poor, even destitute, people. Look what happened to their descendants.

> The fact of the matter is being rich provides opportunities and advantages being middle class doesn't and definitely not being poor, and there is little evidence to suggest that this corrects itself after a few generations. The fact is historically poor populations tend to stay that way, with those who escape being outliers.

This is, in fact, the opposite of true. As noted below, pretty much every wave of American immigrants until recently (Irish, Germans, Italians, Southeast Asians) came here desperately poor and eventually attained economic parity with the groups that were already here. Indeed, that process continues with Hispanic immigrants: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353 ("Hispanic Americans have rates of intergenerational mobility more similar to whites than blacks, leading the Hispanic-white income gap to shrink across generations.")

In the U.S., structural poverty affecting a discrete minority affects Black and Indigenous people, and certain white sub-groups such as Appalachians and Cajuns. It's not a good default model for thinking about income mobility in general.

>>> single biggest predictor of someone's lifetime income is their parents income.

I would have guessed it would be incarceration. Do you have some numbers to support your belief? Wealthy parents likely were not incarcerated, so there may be overlap.

I expect your correct, wealthy parents tend not to be incarcerated. Also more likely to be able to supply their children with high quality care if they are.

As for numbers, here's some: https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-succ...

Data Shows Affluent Black Kids Are More Likely to Be Incarcerated Than Poor White Kids https://eji.org/news/study-rich-black-kids-more-likely-incar...

There are a massive number of examples of this being untrue in America. Jewish Americans, Cubans, Irish, Asian Americans, Poles - all these groups started out poor, and regarded as something other than and lesser to "white" people, and now have at least the same incomes and often more.

They definitely didn't start out being regarded as chattel.

They were bombed out disconnected from family lines, lost history and recovered in a generation.

The people you are likely referring to for the chattel excuse history also under perform in country after country where such things were never allowed. Diversity is difference, and difference will lead to persistent disparity.

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