Lindsay Maurer

In my previous examination of social mobility in the United States, based on a study by Katherine Bradbury and Jane Katz, I focused on how social mobility was realized—or not realized—during the decade lasting from 1988 to 1998. While these statistics are certainly important, they are more fully and adequately addressed within a larger context. Tracking these numbers across multiple decades provides insight into the trends that determine the character of social mobility in our nation.

Only 60% of families in the United States moved quintiles during the 1990s, meaning that a full 40% of society remained in the income-based group from which they started at the outset of the decade. The most movement was realized among the middle quintiles on the income spectrum, while the top and bottom groups remained significantly immobile. These findings suggest that social mobility is not as abundant as one might expect in a nation so concerned with equality of opportunity.

However, as debate will always flourish as to the appropriate magnitude of social mobility, it is helpful to see how these numbers have changed over time in order to discern the direction in which our society is headed. During the 1970s, only 36% of families were immobile, signifying that 64% of Americans experienced mobility over the ten-year period examined. This trend continued rather similarly during the 1980s, when 63% moved quintiles and only 37% were immobile. A comparison of these statistics with those obtained during the 1990s indicates that social mobility is decreasing in the United States.

There are several considerations that must be taken into account when interpreting these findings. The study does not address the reasons for social mobility, and it does not separate the effects experienced by different groups, such as genders or minorities, within the social structure. Furthermore, as we are currently in the middle of the next decade, the researchers have not yet released information on how mobility has changed since 1998. Most significantly, although our societal “ladder” must always have a bottom rung, our overall level of wealth is increasing and America’s poor are among the richest poor in the world.

Despite these cautions, the statistics regarding social mobility remain influential in determining the character of our social structure over time. In the 70s and 80s, while inequality was increasing, social mobility was fairly stable. Although this indicated that inequality was a problem, it was not being exacerbated by decreasing social mobility. In the 1990s, on the other hand, inequality increased and social mobility decreased. In effect, greater inequality was not offset by the ability to move up. It appears that our society is creating fewer and fewer effective opportunities for people to move freely along the social ladder. Its “rungs” are becoming increasingly farther apart over time even as our nation’s wealth is increasing, making it difficult for families to move from one quintile to the next.

It should be noted that similar patterns of social mobility have been observed in other areas of the world. In a study that highlighted trends for the same three decades in eleven European countries, Richard Breen determined that while mobility increased in some nations, several experienced declines similar to that faced in the United States. However, one must take into account the varying characteristics of the nations examined in terms of general inequality. In an article by Clause S. Fischer, et al., the authors note that the United States is the most unequal Western society. This suggests that Americans suffer more from immobility than do citizens of nations whose policies generate a greater degree of equality.

The separate figures for each respective decade indicate movement over a limited period of time, but measuring several sets of data provides more significant insight into the character of social mobility in America. This analysis shows that over longer periods of time, the distribution Lindsay Maurer

of and access to success is becoming less equal in the United States. Although there is some degree of mobility, our social structure is apparently becoming more rigid and inflexible over time. The trend over the past three decades is clear: social mobility is decreasing, becoming ever less able to compensate for the rising inequality of our nation. Thus, adequate social mobility is becoming an increasingly unsustainable argument for the debatable presence of equal opportunities in the United States.

Sources:

Katharine Bradbury and Jane Katz, “Are Lifetime Incomes Growing More Unequal?,” Regional Review (Q4, 2002), pp. 3-5.

Claude S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martín Sánchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler, and Kim Voss, Inequality by Design, pp. 7-10, 126-128, 241, 260-261, 279-280, 286, 290, 292, 295, 299, 301. Copyright © 1996 by Princeton University Press.