Higher Education Gap May Slow Economic Mobility - New York Times:
“The American dream of opportunity is alive, but frayed,” said Isabel Sawhill, another author of the report, “Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Mobility in America.” The report is at economicmobility.org
“It’s still alive for immigrants but badly tattered for African-Americans,” said Ms. Sawhill, an economist and a budget official in the Clinton administration. “It’s more alive for people in the middle class than for people at the very bottom.”
The report and planned studies constitute the most comprehensive effort to examine intergenerational mobility, said John E. Morton of the Pew Trusts, who is managing the project. It draws heavily on a federally supported survey by the University of Michigan that has followed thousands of families since the late 1960s.
A chapter of the report released last fall found startling evidence that a majority of black children born to middle-class parents grew up to have lower incomes and that nearly half of middle-class black children fell into the bottom fifth in adulthood, compared with 16 percent of middle-class white children.
That is a shocking statistic. It's easy to understand why poor black kids have trouble getting ahead: a combination of social capital, culture, racism, and lack of resources. It certainly is possible to succeeed if you're poor--the difference is, if you're poor you have to do every single thing right, while the rest of us have some margin for error. But middle class kids have parents to model and enforce successful behavior; they also have resources to ride out life's storms. Nor is racism a particularly plausible explanation. Racism may depress the earnings of middle-class blacks--but not to poverty level. The returns to education are actually higher for African-Americans than for whites (though in part this is because they're starting from a low base).
"Henry Louis Gates cited an informal poll in which African-American students in the Washington, DC area were asked what constituted "acting white"; according to Gates "the top three things were: making straight A's, speaking standard English and going to the Smithsonian".
White parents have to constantly fight the ever rising tide of Anti-intellectualism in our culture. However, I think African-American parents have a much harder job.
There's nothing shocking here. Most of the growth in the black middle class in recent decades has been due to affirmative action in government hiring. When the children of these government workers look for jobs in the private sector (since there aren't enough jobs for all of them in the public sector) their lower average IQs and surlier attitudes make it difficult for them to get hired or promoted into good jobs.
Harry, you're really a piece of work.
A theory: Many of the prior generation's blacks with middle class incomes worked in the sort of old-line manufacturing industries (steel, autos, etc.) that no longer provide many jobs. As a result, the now-adult children of that generation no longer have the same access to well-paid jobs like their parents did.
Having Obama, a young male with African-American heritage, succeed as he has so effectively based on his intellect, effort, and education rather than on his athleticism, artistic appeal, divisive rhetoric, or appeals to racial sympathies, is an absolutely spectacluar antidote to the myths described in post # 1.
Just having a figure like that recognized with the adoration and respect he's getting has got to be having an awesome effect on young African-Americans making formative life choices right now. It opens up a whole new possible life path to consider for all of them.
When Obama talks about "change," it is implicit but obvious that this "change" includes African-Americans participating as equals in American political and economic system -- as illustrated by Obama himself.
So next time an African American kid hears about someone going to Harvard and becoming president of the U.S., they won't automatically assume that person is white. And when one of their peers tries to take that path, it'll be a lot harder to ridicule that person's efforts as futile.
Although this "change" has nothing to do with the substance of his political positions, it is still inspiring and attractive just because of the structural change it implies for our political and economic culture as a whole.
To continue jmo's point: what Obama will do (and may already be doing) is transforming the meme among African-American teenagers that doing well in school is "acting white" and a bad thing. Which, to the extent that it succeeds, will likely do more to change the problem discussed in the post than anything else the government might do. Which isn't the same as saying that the government should do nothing (even though I think that in most cases the Federal government should stay out). Just that nothing that the Federal government, or anybody else, does will work very well until that sub-culture changes.
"Just having a figure like that recognized with the adoration and respect he's getting has got to be having an awesome effect on young African-Americans making formative life choices right now. It opens up a whole new possible life path to consider for all of them."
This fantasy is the worst possible reason to vote for Obama. His election won't transmogrify the African American underclass. This is the same sort of magical thinking that led New Yorkers to elect David Dinkins as New York's first (and last) black mayor. After one term, they cashiered him for Rudy Giuliani.
Here is my theory:
President Obama will do for young black kids what Bill Gates did for nerds.
Yes, Obama is a great example. He shows black kids everywhere that if they have white grand parents who are willing to pay for them to go to the most exclusive prep school in the state, than they too can go on to the Ivy League, and then into politics.
Black public school kids already are taught that George Washington Carver was the greatest American scientist and Martin Luther King was greater than any American president (why else would he and not Washington or Lincoln have his birthday as a national holiday?). All that self esteem-boosting hasn't helped. Neither has the example of Condeleeza Rice or Colin Powell. Maybe a black pope would do the trick?
The fundamental problem is that the increasing returns to education come at the college level, but the education gap has its origins at the K-6 level. Any educational reform would necessarily involve sustained effort & tracking over twelve years, thereby making any effective educational reform extremely unlikely.
Of course, it doesn't help that the only study to actually track what works in K-6 education got buried by the educational bureaucracy.
Since the white mean is greater than the black mean the regression to the mean effect predicts white children will do better than black children even when their parents are at the same level. And in this sort of study the parents may not actually be at the same level. For example the white families and black families may have similiar incomes but the white families may have more wealth. So I don't see what's so shocking.
The other side of the coin with Pres. Obama is that when he inevitably doesn't get his way on some piece of legislation, the defeat won't be seen as a defeat on the merits of the legislation but as racist revenge by whitey against a black president. Will race relations then deteriorate between whites and blacks everytime Pres. Obama doesn't get his way? Like Nixon going to China, it may require the first black president to be a conservative Republican in order to smooth over race relations.
Harry, please, just go away. And take Steve Sailer with you.
jmo is right. Anti-intellectualism is the problem. Even though there are many more black cardiologists in America than professional athletes, or multi-platinum rappers, kids don't know that. So they think that being black is about fitting some absurd ignorant stereotype. White kids do the same thing. They tease the black kids who hangs out with them, and deride the white kids who hang out with blacks. Early on, kids are pretty inclusive, but as they get older they self-segregate more and more.
At my high school, which is majority-minority, the newspaper did a survey in which they asked the kids what they though white and black characteristics were. The white kids called whites dorky and mostly uncool. They said that blacks were funny and outgoing. The black kids said that whites were smart and hard-working, and blacks were ignorant and loud. The teacher who advised the student newspaper decided that the results of the survey weren't suitable for publication.
"Even though there are many more black cardiologists in America than professional athletes"
Christina,
Are you sure this is true? The Association of Black Cardiologists only has about 600 members. There are easily more black professional football players alone than that.
"The white kids called whites dorky and mostly uncool. They said that blacks were funny and outgoing. The black kids said that whites were smart and hard-working, and blacks were ignorant and loud."
It's too bad the teacher didn't let the newspaper publish this, since it would have been instructive.
Obama is a child of an African immigrant and it says immigrants do comparatively better. As I recall this is true of black immigrants who do comparatively better than African-Americans.
I think anti-intellectualism is one issue. Although another is that culture or society or whatever encourages the idea of "quick money", especially for African Americans. Rather than go for something respectable but unglamorous, like shoe salesman or plumber or something, they're encouraged to go for careers that are extremely selective. (Music, sports, acting, etc) I would say even the more positive figures don't exactly encourage a practical approach. Black kids who are ambitious are to reach for some generally unreachable goal, like being Barack Obama (which is just as unreachable for me, who like Obama is the son of a white Kansan), rather than something plausible. Having a "fall back" position in case that fails is seen as compromising and actively discouraged.
I'm curious if the explosion of divorce and single-adult households is skewing the statistics here. Have they corrected for that effect? A primary change in black fortunes over the last forty years has been the collapse of the black family. So the kids might be in single-parent single-earner household while their parents were in married, two-earner households.
"Are you sure this is true? The Association of Black Cardiologists only has about 600 members. There are easily more black professional football players alone than that."
Is this really true, that there are more black NFL players than cardiologists? Maybe blacks are just being rational in aiming for athletic careers, if the odds, however long, are better for them there.
Juan: Are you guessing that just as many high school kids try out for the cardiology team as the football team, and get the same social rewards?
It certainly wasn't the case at my high school. I could get a catheter into the left ventricle in 30 seconds, yet I rarely got invited to parties. Even Mom didn't care; she saved her enthusiasm for my sister the figure skater.
Juan,
There are 1696 players total on NFL rosters (53 players per team, 32 teams) at any one time (some go on and off practice squads depending on injury, so there are a few more who will be pros at some point during a season) and 360 players total on NBA rosters (12 players per team, 30 teams).
I'm not sure of the exact percentages of black players in each league but 80% would be on the low side. That works out to about 1645.
This doesn't count any other sports. There are probably a significant number of black players in baseball at all professional levels since the roster size is so large (40 per team at the major league level, many more in the minor leagues).
In 2000, there were 17970 cardiologists in the United States. If less than 9% of cardiologists were black, there are indeed more black professional athletes than black cardiologists.