Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by s1artibartfast 1723 days ago
I would look into stats on social mobility by country.

Social mobility in the US is still pretty good last time I checked. Most European countries have have lower income income inequality, but less mobility. Eg, the difference between the bottom and top 25‰ is smaller, but your birth class is more predictive of your future income.
1 comments
TFYS 1723 days ago
Looks like most of Europe has better social mobility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

link
s1artibartfast 1723 days ago
Unfortunately, no data on social mobility was used in the making of this ranking.

The authors picked several factors like which they assume lead to improved social mobility (like births/woman), score countries out of 100, then perform a simple numerical average them to form the mobility index. Look at page 205 of the report for the list. They don't validate that the factors are actually related in any way to mobility outcomes.

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report....

link
TFYS 1723 days ago
Sure, it takes other things than income into consideration as well, but it's probably better that way if you really want to understand how easy it is to improve your life in each country. They do consider income as well: "In Denmark or Finland, for example, if one’s parent earns 100% more than another, it is estimated that the impact on a child’s future income is around 15%, compared to about 50% in the United States...".
link
s1artibartfast 1723 days ago
>Sure, it takes other things than income into consideration as well.

In fact, mean income feeds 0% into the index ranking. Intergenerational change in income feeds 0% into the index. Income inequality (fixed in time), feeds in 10% to the index.

> They do consider income as well: "In Denmark or Finland, for example, if one’s parent earns 100% more than another, it is estimated that the impact on a child’s future income is around 15%, compared to about 50% in the United States...".

That is a reference to another study in the section explaining "why social mobility matters". It was NOT included in the Index ranking. That line data isn't sourced well, so it is hard to follow up on what exactly they are comparing and how.

link