Thursday, May 19, 2005

Would Equal Opportunity Mean More Mobility?

"Adult economic status is positively correlated with parental economic status in every society for which we have data, but no democratic society is entirely comfortable with this fact. As a result, all democratic societies have adopted policies aimed at reducing the effect of family background on life chances, and most left-of-center political parties think that governments should do even more. This paper makes two main arguments. First, equal opportunity does not imply eliminating all sources of economic resemblance between parents and children.... Second, the size of the correlation between the economic status of parents and their children is not a good indicator of how close a society has come to equalizing opportunity." Authors : Christopher Jencks and Laura Tach | Source: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series

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