Study suggests that here you live can make a difference in how far you climb the economic ladder
Where you live in the Land of Opportunity may have a lot to do with your economic outcomes, according to a Harvard University study released this summer. Harvard researchers based research for The Equality of Opportunity Project on data gleaned from income data, establishing a correlation between location and the ability of low-income residents to move ahead economically.
The study created rankings for upward mobility between generations and listed the odds of a child reaching the top fifth in income from the bottom fifth for 741 U.S. Census commuting zones. The study followed children who were born in 1980 or 1981 and measured their household income in 2010-2011 and compared it with their parents’ between 1996-2000.
Greenville was included on the 100 largest commuting zones list and odds of residents moving from the bottom fifth to the top fifth was 4.9 percent. Bakersfield, Calif., residents had the greatest chance at 12.4 percent and Memphis, Tenn., had the lowest at 2.6 percent. Greenville ranked seventh-lowest in the list of 100, after Detroit.
The study also measured “absolute upward mobility” or the average economic outcome of a child from a below-median income family in the 25th percentile or lower to above that. Greenville was in the 37.7th percentile. And highest in the nation was Salt Lake City, with 46.4.
In other words, a child who grows up poor in an area with high upward mobility like Seattle has a much greater chance of reaching the middle class than a child who grows up poor in Atlanta or Memphis. Researchers found a low-upward-mobility “belt” that runs through the Southeast and also through the Midwestern industrial areas.
In addition to income, the researchers examined how factors such as economic and racial segregation, test scores and dropout rates and two-parent versus single-parent households affected upward mobility.
Basic education through a quality K-12 school system was also established as a correlation to upward mobility – however, access to higher education was not, according to the study. Curtis Simon, associate professor of economics at Clemson University, agrees. He adds that exposure to knowledge is a crude measure of economic success: “The broad belief is that access to smart people gives you access to frontier knowledge and you can acquire state-of-the-art knowledge,” he said.
Researchers write that areas with a small middle class have lower rates of mobility, and those with segregation between low- and middle-income individuals also have lower rates.
Race and location also play a part, they wrote. “We find that rates of upward mobility are significantly lower in areas with a larger African-American population, such as the South. But importantly, we find that white individuals living in areas with large African-American populations also have lower rates of upward mobility.”
Two strong upward mobility predictors were “social capital and family structure,” according to the report, where communities with more religious and community involvement and two-parent households have higher upward mobility.
Researchers only established correlations, they maintain, and further research will have to be done to point to the causes of disparities in upward mobility across the nation.
“What is clear from this research is that there is substantial variation in the United States in the prospects for escaping poverty. Understanding the properties of the highest mobility areas – and how we can improve mobility in areas that currently have lower rates of mobility – is an important question for future research that we and other social scientists are exploring,” said the report.
See an interactive national map on upward mobility here.
