@“Cardinal Fang” I made the point earlier but will make it again. I know a lot of very smart and wealthy white women who are stay-at-home mothers or schoolteachers. White women are more than twice as likely to be stay-at-home mothers than black women; all it takes is a fairly small difference with some white women coming in at zero income to throw off the numbers. (I’d love to have more demographic information on this, but I don’t). Likewise, the article mentions a disproportionate number of black men being incarcerated, which presumably gives them an income of zero, which will also serve to skew results.
It is extremely rare for an upper income child not to take the ACT or SAT, so it should be very, very easy to match test scores to every student/study participant. In many states, one or the other test is required of all students. Instead of telling us why test scores don’t matter, maybe the authors should have given us the data so that we could decide for ourselves.
There are a lot of interesting questions raised by both this study and the comments on this thread, but two of the main factors in later financial success are parental SES and cognitive ability/academic achievement as measured through various test scores. To see how important each is the other should be held constant (only after doing this is it possible to identify or allege bias). This is very easily done. Why are we being denied this information?
The topline result we’ve been discussing is black boys in families in the top income quintile not remaining in the top two income quintiles as adults. What does incarceration have to do with this? If these rich boys are incarcerated as young men, why? If that were much of an explanation for the result (I doubt it is) it would certainly raise more questions than it settled.
I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here. If you’re thinking that the result is explained away because black families in the top quintile of income tend to be at the bottom of the top quintile, nice try but no. Look at the second graph, which does compare families of similar income.
Except, it is a zero sum game, unless you have a lot of immigration to fill up the lower income quintiles. To a first order approximation, you can’t have upward percentile mobility(moving from 50% to 90%), without also having downward percentile mobility(someone else moves from the 90% down to the 50%).
I caught a portion of a discussion on NPR recently in which they were discussing the earnings gap between men and women. The statement was made that men are far more likely to apply for jobs even if they meet only a few of the advertised requirements. Women almost always applied only to jobs for which they satisfied 100% of the requirements. The explanation was couched in terms of risk taking, perfectionism and fear of rejection.
I wonder if a similar dynamic might be in play for black men seeking advancement. Systemic racism like systemic sexism might make a job seeker hesitant to apply for higher paying jobs that they feel subconsciously unqualified to perform. I didn’t read the original research paper so perhaps this possibility was addressed and discounted. Great presentation of data in the NYT article and I want Cardinal Fang on my debate team…
It is entirely possible that high income quintile African American families at the time of birth of the studied cohort (1978-1983) tended to live in high-poverty urban areas more commonly than one may expect based on income levels, because of racial discrimination in rental housing and mortgage lending that existed rather openly in the 1950s and 1960s and continued into the 1970s. Note that such racial discrimination meant that African American families got a later start than European American families in the growth of owner occupied home equity which is often used to help buy one’s next home in a more desirable area.
Also, when that cohort was born, there were still substantial lead emissions from cars using leaded gasoline. Childhood lead exposure is associated with higher rates of violent crime 15-20 years later.
It’s good to look at the effect of lead exposure (and those effects tend to be dramatic and bad) but lead wouldn’t explain the black-white differences in the same neighborhood which these researchers saw. They saw differences between blacks and whites who grew up on the same block.
I wish more was said about Asians “the model minority” in the study. Why are they doing better than some of the other groups? They have been discriminated against and many needed to learn English though it may not have been spoken by their relatives. I could only find a few patagraphs and graphs that included them at all.
For those trying to attribute the black-white difference to black children being born into single-parent families, the researchers considered and rejected that hypothesis:
The authors similarly dismiss the idea that black boys do worse because of cognitive weakness as measured by test scores. They point out that the black-white gap in test scores occurs among both women and men, yet this black-white income gap is seen only in men.
Recent (since the 1960s) Asian immigration has been heavily biased toward graduate students and skilled workers. No surprise that such immigrants’ kids tend to do well in school, regardless of whether you think it is nature or nurture, since both would be in favor of such kids’ educational attainment.
Is this drop in social mobility unique to black males? Does this study look at other minority groups? Hispanic or Asian males? Paywall so I can’t see article.
The original study I linked a few posts above is free. It briefly mentions Asians and Hispanics and Native Americans with a few charts. The rest of the article and study is mostly about black males and downward mobility.
If you search online, there are other summaries of the study as well. It relies on US Census data covering a long period of time.
Not always. In a growing economy more room is available for all.
However, we should expect both immigration and upward/downward mobility as the norm. The key part of the mobility question is that it is truly merit based. I think the study opens more question than it answers (proof in this thread). Families (fathers and mothers) reach the top but their children do not remain there. How are father and son different? Or, are the son’s environment different from the father’s?
One thing that really struck me many years ago was the gap in incomes based upon career paths. I noticed that there are very educated, intelligent, hard working people that are making fairly low salaries. Even near/at the top of their fields. It didn’t seem to matter how amazing they were, the pay was just low. And there are people in certain industries like tech and finance that are making so much money, it just seems to appear out of thin air. I always wanted my kids to be in that group where money was readily available, and not working their butts off for a low income (unless, of course, they were doing something that they truly loved). We steered them towards STEM (particularly tech) early on. Programming classes, math and chess club, game design, anything tech. I regretted it sometimes…get off your laptop and go outside! They were too focused on their computers. But it has paid off for them so far, big time for the oldest. The money literally is appearing out of nowhere for him.
When I looked at some of the graphs (and they don’t have a full picture), I noticed there are significantly more white males in STEM and business, and significantly more black males in administrative and food service jobs. The career path you choose directly affects your income. Is there a noticeable amount of discrimination in these industries towards black men? Career paths could be another reason for lower income, and a reason why many Asian kids are doing well.
@busdriver11 There is some discrimination in these fields as I’ve read plenty of anecdotes about Blacks interviewing at tech companies. I would also say that a lot of it has to do with exposure. By the time a lot of Asian/white kids are in college they’ve been exposed to tech camps etc. You then get to college and many Black kids don’t have the money to do an out of town internship, thereby losing valuable experience and ultimately networking. So by the time they graduate, their resume is not as robust as their counterparts.
That makes sense, @partyof5, as a reason for the general population of black kids being discrimated against. However, that doesn’t explain the situation of the boys from wealthy families. Why would they not be exposed to tech by their parents? And why would they not have the money to do out of town internships? I completely understand as far as kids from lower income families not being able to afford the internships and camps, but why not the wealthier kids? If that is the case.
I’ll never forget the speech given by a retired NY tax partner at a Big 4 acctg firm who is black. He told us that when he was a first year associate meeting with clients for the first time his more senior colleagues would always introduce him as “this is xxxxxx he is a graduate of Harvard” like they had to legitimize his credentials to sit at the table with these clients. He went on to say that white associate’s colleges were never mentioned in the introductions. Even at the highest levels of professional services firms subtle (and not so subtle) biases and racism exist.
@busdriver11 honestly I would need to know how “wealthy” was defined. If it was defined strictly by income, which we know would be incorrect , that would explain it.
For example, I consider our family middle income,perhaps upper depending on how it’s defined, but we really have no wealth. There are a lot of my friends in the same boat. When we went to school we had student loans, etc. So when we started our first jobs, many of my white coworkers were able to max out their 401k, had help with down payments on a house, and began 529 for their kids. Most of us didn’t have that assistance. So when you are black making a good income, that doesn’t mean you have a lot of extra for those things. I know my daughter interned in NY one summer, and it cost a lot of money. Sometimes you have to pick and choose where the money goes. When you have several kids, and a few in or near college, tech camps internships etc sometimes are not in the cards especially when you need that kid to earn spending money for the next school year. I’m not saying this is The reason, but it is one reason.