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Social Mobility in the United States? The focus of this paper will be social mobility in America. My expected findings were that upward social mobility is declining in America, social mobility depends on race, income, mother and father occupation, and ethnicity. The method of research that I used was literature review. I found that 1) upward social mobility is more likely for a white individual than a black individual 2) upward social mobility among the lower classes is decreasing and downward social mobility is increasing 3) upward social mobility does increase the higher the person starts on the social ladder. The United States of America is a country that takes pride in having a thing called equal opportunity for all.
America is a place where one can supposedly be successful if he or she works hard. Is this the reality of our society or just a myth? If the idea of equal opportunity were a reality in America, social mobility would be a very common thing. Poverty would only be temporary for the ones who willing to work hard. It wouldnt have to mean that America would be a classless society, just one in which people moved up and down the social ladder.
The question of social mobility and the truth to the idea of equal opportunity has been argued for many years in America. We have yet to come to a consensus. If it is true that equal opportunity doesnt exist in American than the idea of the American Dream would be false. Everything that America is about and stands for would have to be questioned and reexamined. Social policies in America have often been shaped by different ideas concerning this issue. Politicians who favor the idea that equal opportunity does exist often enact policies that take away public assistance to impoverished people in America.
They believe that since America provides equal opportunity there is no reason to give assistance to poor people. The idea here is that people are poor because they arent working to improve their life conditions. On the other hand politicians who question the existence of equal opportunity for all often favor legislation to increase public assistance to the needy. They believe that the poverty that exists in society is due to social inequalities rather than flaws in the individuals themselves. A persons view on this issue depends mainly on her or his perception of social mobility. In order to understand this issue we must examine what actually takes place in America.
Is poverty a permanent condition that can rarely be changed or is it only temporary? Does everyone have equal access to improve his or her life condition? How common is social mobility and in what classes is it most common? These are questions that must be addressed when examining the truth or the myth of social mobility in America.
The focus of this paper is to examine social mobility and the factors that contribute to the likelihood of it. The factors that will be examined are race, family, income, mother and father occupation, and a few others. &# 61623; Upward social mobility is more likely for a white individual than a black individual. &# 61623; The higher the income of a family the more of a chance of social mobility for the children of the family? &# 61623; The frequency of downward social mobility is increasing and the frequency of upward mobility (from the lower classes) is decreasing. White individuals in our society have an obvious advantage over most minority individuals when it comes to being upwardly mobile in society. Specifically white individuals fair much than black individuals regarding this issue. Discrimination in the United States still exists and probably will for a very long time. This is a factor that holds back a lot of blacks and other minority groups.
Also because blacks and other minorities are disproportionately represented in the lower class, many of them lack the education and job training that a socially mobile person needs. Because blacks in America have to overcome many different social barriers in order to be successful, they are less likely to be upwardly mobile when compared to whites. It is my perception that the higher the individual starts on the social ladder the more likely the individual will end up higher than where she or he first started. The opportunities you are given in life depend mainly on your class.
The more money your parents have the more opportunities you have. Sadly enough often times the quality of education a person receives in our society depends almost solely on how much money the parents have; and we all know education is the key to upward social mobility. If we actually had equal opportunity in America wouldnt that have to mean that we all had equal assess to education? Well we dont.
It is a fact that the middle class in America is in fact shrinking. While more and more people are making it to the top, the same is true for the bottom. It is my perception that in fact more people are falling out than climbing up. However I dont have any statistics to prove that at this time, I hope to accomplish that in my research. The method of research used in this paper is literature search and review. I will review five journal articles that are relative to the focus of this paper.
Hopefully they will substantiate my arguments. In the article Getting ahead: social mobility among the urban poor by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, the author examines the social mobility within the urban poor population. The article concentrates on the factors that hold the urban poor back. Also the study concentrated on the black urban poor in order to exam prejudice and discrimination. The author explains each factor and how they limit social mobility among the urban poor. Venkatesh believes race plays a big factor in social mobility.
He hypotheses that blacks experience an enormous amount of racial discrimination that often times prevents them from getting a certain job or being promoted in a job they have. He also states that the location of the jobs is a big factor. He is convinced most businesses that offer jobs for less skilled people are not located in the areas in which the urban poor are and the lack of good public transportation makes it almost impossible for the poor to acquire jobs. He says the jobs that do develop in the urban areas either demand high levels of education or are extremely low paying and the person would be better off staying on public assistance.
Venkatesh also claims that there is adequate job advertising in these neighborhoods. It seems that the businesses will do all they can not to hire these kinds of people. The research for the article was a combination of interviews and background research by secondary analysis. The study consisted of the responses of 27 black males who were either unemployed or receiving public assistance.
The results supported most of the authors hypotheses. The respondents mentioned many things the stifled social mobility. The most mentioned were racial discrimination, industrial flight, lost jobs to technology, and social isolation. Most respondents felt the whites had an unfair advantage when it came to acquiring jobs. Most of them seen racial discrimination first hand. One respondent even described a situation in which a secretary at a corporation told him that when a black man would fill out an application for a job there they were told to dispose of it.
Many of the respondents have seen this kind of blatant discrimination. The respondents also noticed that jobs in fact arent advertised in their community as well as they are in the more suburban areas. Most of the respondents agreed with Venkatesh's ideas about the factors that contribute to the lack of social mobility among the urban poor. The article was very comprehensive and covered many key factors in the issue of social mobility.
It did a particularly great job in showing how racial issues play a big part of the problem. The method of research was good however it was quite limited. The interviewer only asked certain questions that favored the hypotheses. It was almost as if the interviewer was leading the respondents at times. Besides this the research was excellent in examining this issue. It was a pleasant change from the monotonous statistics that usually fill these types of articles.
The article The next Italians: Latinos in California from the journal The Economist examines the social mobility of the Latino community in California. The article is an examination and interpretation of data collected by the report The Emerging Latino Middle Class by Gregory Rodriguez. In this report Rodriguez examines that amount of Latinos in Greater Los Angeles that make it in to the middle class. In this article the author goes over these statistics as well as explaining and interpreting them. Rodriguez found that more than half the households of American-born Latinos and a third of households head by foreign-born Latinos were middle class in 1990. These numbers are extremely high for a minority group.
New immigrants are often poor to start off with, however the longer they stay in America, the better they do. Also there is no indication that this kind of social mobility is slowing. The author compares Latinos of today to early- 20 th century Italians because they reach the middle class by setting up small businesses, working in blue-collar jobs and by pooling their resources, with extended families living under the same roof. Even though assimilation has obviously taken place here, the author points out that Latinos still maintain their sense of culture.
Almost every middle class immigrant speaks Spanish at home. They are also maintaining ties with th...
Free research essays on topics related to: urban poor, equal opportunity, social mobility, racial discrimination, middle class
Research essay sample on Social Mobility Racial Discrimination
