Potential Data Sources for a New Study of Social Mobility in the United States

Open-Population Inference: An Investigation of the Underrepresentation of the Second Generation in Research on Intergenerational Income Mobility

Studies about intergenerational income mobility are increasingly popular across the social sciences. These studies require individuals’ own incomes and their parents’ incomes to be observed prospectively across decades. Because this longitudinal observation is less difficult among third-and-higher generation persons than among 1.5- and second-generation persons (particularly undocumented 1.5-generation immigrants), studies of intergenerational income mobility risk underrepresenting 1.5- and second-generation persons. This article investigates this underrepresentation of people from immigrant families and provides an analytic framework that adjusts for this underrepresentation in studies of intergenerational income mobility. Using data on the experiences of two US birth cohorts, early baby boomers (born 1948–1953) and late generation Xers/early millennials (born 1978–1983), we illustrate our method of adjusting for the underrepresentation of 1.5- and second-generation persons. We find that within the late generation-X/early-millennial cohort, the underrepresentation of 1.5- and second-generation persons does not substantially bias intergenerational income mobility estimates. However, inferences about change across cohorts are more affected by the underrepresentation of 1.5- and second-generation persons in data used to estimate intergenerational income mobility because the population shares of these groups grew across the two cohorts. We discuss how our approach can be applied to other settings, including other countries, and to cross-country comparisons. We encourage future research on these comparisons because the underrepresentation of 1.5- and second-generation persons might substantially affect understanding of cross-national income mobility differences.

The American Opportunity Study: A New Infrastructure for Monitoring Outcomes, Evaluating Policy, and Advancing Basic Science

The American Opportunity Study is an ongoing initiative to build the country's capacity to access and analyze linked administrative data. It is best viewed as a population-level scaffolding on which other administrative data can then be hung. This scaffolding, if used as a stand-alone resource, will allow for long-run analyses of fundamental population and labor market processes. If combined with data from other sources, it will allow for long-run program evaluation and other experimental and quasi-experimental analyses. We discuss the current status of the American Opportunity Study, its potential to advance the field, remaining obstacles that must be overcome to build it, and how it can work within the guidelines suggested by the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.

Still no compelling evidence that Americans overestimate upward socio-economic mobility rates: Reply to Davidai & Gilovich (2018)

Davidai and Gilovich (2018) contend that (a) Americans tend to think about their nation’s income distribution in terms of quintiles (fifths), and (b) when Americans’ perceptions of socio-economic mobility rates are measured properly (e.g., by asking online survey respondents to guess upward-mobility rates across quintiles), a trend of overestimation (too much optimism concerning the number of people who manage to transcend poverty) will emerge. In this reply, we hail Davidai and Gilovich’s new data as novel, important, and relevant to the former (a), but we doubt that they can support the latter (b) claim about population-level (in)accuracy. Namely, we note that even if mobility-rate perceptions could be measured perfectly, inferences about the accuracy of those perceptions still depend on a particular comparator—a point-estimate of the "true" rate of upward social mobility in the U.S. against which survey respondents’ guesses are evaluated—that is itself an error-prone estimate. Applying different established comparators to survey respondents’ guesses changes both the direction and magnitude of previously observed overestimation effects. We conclude with a challenge: researchers who wish to compute the average distance between socio-economic perceptions and socio-economic reality must first select and justify a fair comparator.

A New Infrastructure for Monitoring Social Mobility in the United States

The country's capacity to monitor trends in social mobility has languished since the last major survey on U.S. social mobility was fielded in 1973. It is accordingly difficult to evaluate recent concerns that social mobility may be declining or to develop mobility policy that is adequately informed by evidence. This article presents a new initiative, dubbed the American Opportunity Study (AOS), that would allow the country to monitor social mobility efficiently and with great accuracy. The AOS entails developing the country's capacity to link records across decennial censuses, the American Community Survey, and administrative sources. If an AOS of this sort were assembled, it would open up new fields of social science inquiry; increase opportunities for evidence-based policy on poverty, mobility, child development, and labor markets; and otherwise constitute a new social science resource with much reach and impact.