Explain how demographic factors affect social mobility.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary.Demographic factors affect social mobility. Four of the most important are education, gender, race, and ethnicity, but place also has an effect.Education: Especially when the economy is slumping, people with a high school education or less often face long and frequent bouts of unemployment, must get by with temporary work, and may move down the socioeconomic ladder.Gender: Women's massive entry into the labor force since the 1980s has increased family income and many single women's upward mobility. Men's mobility is less affected than women's by a divorce, nonmarital children, or widowhood.Race and ethnicity: Black and Latino middle classes have grown since the 1970s, but both groups still lag significantly behind whites and Asian Americans. Economic, cultural, and social capital account for most of this mobility gap. Since the slavery era, white parents could accumulate skills and wealth that, with every generation, gave their children far better chances than black children of moving up.Place: Where one lives can stimulate or dampen upward mobility. The disparities in upward mobility in different parts of the country are correlated with four factors: residential segregation (whether by income or race), the quality of schooling, how many children live with only one parent, and parents' social capital.