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... eir homeland. This was a great article on social mobility. It was excellent in explaining and examining social mobility of Latinos in California. This article has great relevance for the future of America. The number of Latino immigrants is increasing rapidly in the United States.
Many Americans fear this because they see Latino immigrants as leeches that just come to the United States to get on welfare and live off the system. This is obvious not true. They are obviously very determined and patient people. This article throws a different factor into the equation regarding social mobility. It raises the question of why are some minority groups more socially mobile than others?
Is it because of discrimination and racial preference or is it cultural? For the Latino community in California perhaps its the latter that allows them to succeed. The truth about social mobility is interview article from the journal Challenge. The interview is with Labor Department senior economist Stephen J.
Rose and is about his longitudinal study on social mobility in America. He studied increases and decreases in income of Americans over two decades (1970 s and 1980 s). After finding out that the middle class was shrinking in 1983, Rose conducted a study to find out if social mobility was changing and in what ways. The sample consisted of middle age people who were already established wage earners and werent going to retire soon. Rose found that social mobility was in fact changing and it wasnt for the better. In the 70 s 21 percent of prime age adults had lower incomes at the end of the decade versus the beginning and in the 80 s this percentage was up to 33 percent.
Also another very disturbing finding was that in the seventies people at all income levels had about and equal chance to move ahead, however in the eighties the higher the person started off the more chance they had of moving up. 53 % of the bottom quintile in the 80 s were losers compared to only 33 % in the seventies. The conclusion that Rose made was that downward social mobility is increasing and social inequality is growing and more and more people are losing ground. Rose came to the conclusion that the 1980 s were worse for everyone, however more so for those at the lower end than those at the top. Rose also stated that there is no indication that the situation is getting better in the 1990 s and says there are some indications that the pattern is continuing.
This article was extremely detailed and comprehensive. The numbers were explained very well and all of the information was relevant. The interview format was excellent for this kind of information. The interviewer got right to the important information and asked very specific open-ended questions. The report that Rose did seems to be almost flawless in the way he conducted it. I wouldnt question the numbers at all.
He fixed many of the biases that can present themselves in these types of studies. The numbers do a great job in summing up the changes in social mobility in America. In the article The occupational mobility of black males revisited: does race matter? author Theodore J.
Davis Jr. examines the extent to which opportunities for social mobility have or have not continued to expand for black males since the early 1970 s. Much of the study is an examination of an article by David Featherman entitled Opportunities. A lot of the information that Davis uses is from Featherman's study.
In a way Davis study was a continuation of Featherman's. Featherman found that in the 1970 s Americans enjoyed as much opportunity for social mobility as in early periods especially for blacks in the labor force. Davis studies what has happened since then. He doesnt state a hypothesis.
The data that was used in this study is from the 1972 - 1989 Cumulative General Social Survey. The 1970 s sample consisted of 4, 284 white and 556 black males. The 1980 s sample consisted of 4, 526 white and 767 black males. The findings of the study were: (1) intergenerational occupational mobility for both black and white males were associated with their fathers occupational attainment, however black males experienced greater downward mobility than white males; (2) intergenerational occupational persistence levels were greater for white males than for black males; and (3) race continues to influence the occupational mobility of black males. Davis also found that the biggest decline in occupational attainment among black males between the 1970 s and the 1980 s was in the percent employed in lower manual positions. The unemployment rate for black males had also increased in the 1980 s.
Davis does a good job in this article studying race as a factor in social mobility. Davis found that race is a factor and perhaps more today than in the past. Although the article was wordy and repetitive it did a good show in showing the importance of race when it comes to moving up the social ladder. The article Wage mobility of undocumented workers in the United States by Maria Tienda and Audrey Singer focuses on two questions about the economic assimilation of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
These two questions are: (1) how different recently legalized immigrants are from all foreign-born persons and native-born whites; (2) whether wages of undocumented immigrants improve the longer they are in America and, if so, how these improvements are comparable to those of immigrants in general. The authors study was an analysis of the Legalized Population Survey and the Current Population Survey to assess the returns to U. S. experience.
They found that for both undocumented migrants and all foreign-born men there were positive returns the longer the person was in America. They also found that these returns depend on the region of origin. Undocumented immigrants from Mexico saw lowest wages and men from non-Spanish speaking countries received the highest. This supports the idea that race plays a factor in social mobility. When a person is a Latino immigrant they dont benefit as much as a white immigrant. This article was good in showing the social mobility of immigrants, legal and illegal.
The main point that should be recognized is that race played a factor in how far the immigrant made it up the social ladder. The non-Latinos seemed to fair a lot better than the Latinos. The article supports the notion that race is one of the factors in determining a persons chance of social mobility. The findings of the research seem to overwhelmingly support the first hypothesis that upward social mobility is more likely for a white individual than a black individual. Race is obviously a factor when it comes to the likelihood of upward social mobility.
Reasons for this are numerous however these findings seem to point towards discrimination. Another finding was that upward social mobility among the lower classes is decreasing and downward social mobility is increasing, particularly for the lower class. The situation for lower class people in America seems to be getting worse. The finding that social mobility among the Latinos in California is increasing was also made.
This surprising finding is significant because it raises many questions about social mobility with regards to culture and assimilation. A final finding was that upward social mobility does increases the higher the person starts on the social ladder. Many researchers have found similar findings, however what do they actually mean for society? While there are many explanations of social mobility in the United States there arent many solutions. The problem of inequality of social mobility exists because of the inequalities in society. Not everyone in our society has equal opportunities to education or job training.
If we did the American Dream would exist and we could say we have equal opportunity for all. We have claimed these things for years however it has never actually existed. In order to correct these inequalities the first thing we must do is equalize education throughout America. The urban schools in America are extremely inadequate compared to schools in the suburbs.
Everyone should be given the exact same opportunities to be educated. Higher education should not be exclusive to the rich. Universal education is the best way to ensure the American dream. Each school should be as good as the next one. This is the only way to make our society more equal. Everyone who is determined to move up in society would be able to if everyone had the same opportunity to be educated.
Correcting inequalities in our society does not end here though. We need to improve living conditions of the poor by having more programs devoted to housing development, making sure everyone has the adequate health care they need, and supporting child care programs for working people. When these living conditions are improved, poor people wont have to deal with as many hardships and can spend their time climbing the social ladder. Improving living conditions and equal education is the only way to make the American Dream come true.
Bibliography: Davis Jr. , Theodore, The occupational mobility of black males revisited: does race Matter? , The Social Science Journal, v 32, n 2, April, 1995. The next Italians: Latinos in California, The Economist, v 341, n 7996, December, 1996. The truth about social mobility, Challenge, v 39, n 3, May-June, 1996 Tienda, Maria and Audrey Singer, Wage mobility of undocumented workers in the United States, International Migration Review, v 29, n 1, Spring 1995. Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi, Getting ahead: social mobility among the urban poor Sociological Perspectives, v 37, n 2, summer 1994.
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