What is it about?
Social mobility is an important question because it captures equality of opportunity in a society. There are different ways of measuring mobility, and the measure choice alters the findings. This article makes the important distinction between measures of individual mobility and group mobility (for example, groups based on surnames, or race/ethnicity). We show intuitively, statistically, and with examples that this measures are different. We also show that the recent book by Gregory Clark "The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility" wrongly uses group mobility by surname to measure individual mobility.
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Why is it important?
This article explains different measures of intergenerational mobility including individual mobility and group-level mobility intuitively, statistically, and based on examples. We also show that Clark's use of surname group-level mobility as a measure of individual mobility is unwarranted and leads to wrong conclusions. As we show, the fact that Clark finds levels of mobility that are low and stable across time and place is an artifact of the way he incorrectly measures individual mobility.
Perspectives
The question about mobility is extremely important in an era of growing inequality. But devil is in the details in the way we measure mobility. This article contributes to the understanding of intergenerational mobility by distinguishing different measures of mobility at the individual and group level, and question recent findings by Clark of low and unchanging levels of mobility.
Dr. Florencia Torche
Stanford University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Estimating Intergenerational Mobility With Grouped Data, Sociological Methods & Research, September 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0049124116661579.
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