The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940
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- 28 April 2017
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 356 (6336), 398-406
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4617
Abstract
Aspiring to do better than one's parents: The American dream promises that hard work and opportunity will lead to a better life. Although the specifics of what constitutes a better life vary from generation to generation, one constant is that children expect to do better—or at least to have a good chance at doing better—than their parents. Chetty et al. show that this dream did come true for children born in the middle of the 20th century, but only for half of children born in 1984 (see the Policy Forum by Katz and Krueger). A more even distribution of economic growth, rather than more growth, would allow more children to fulfill their dreams. Science , this issue p. 398 ; see also p. 382Keywords
Funding Information
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (award304402)
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (award304403)
- Stanford University (award304405)
- Harvard University (award304404)
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