Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The defining narrative of the United States of America is that of a nation where everyone has an
opportunity to achieve a better life. Americans believe that everyone should have the opportunity to
succeed through talent, creativity, intelligence, and hard work, regardless of the circumstances of their
birth. Our leaders share this support for opportunity. In a speech last fall, President Obama said that
Americans should make sure that “everyone in America gets a fair shot at success.”1 Mitt Romney has
repeatedly spoken about an opportunity society, where people can “engage in hard work, and pursue
the passion of their ideas and dreams. If they succeed, they merit the rewards they are able to enjoy.”2
Americans have an unusually strong belief in meritocracy. One way of thinking about opportunity is in terms of gen-
In other nations, circumstances at birth, family connec- erational improvement in living standards. Among today’s
tions, and luck are considered more important factors in middle-aged Americans, four in five households have higher
economic success than they are in the U.S. This merito- incomes than their parents had at the same age, and three
cratic philosophy is one reason why Americans have had in five men have higher earnings than their fathers. The
relatively little objection to high levels of inequality—as extent to which this will be true for today’s children remains
long as those at the bottom have a fair chance to work to be seen. More importantly, if everyone grows richer over
their way up the ladder. Similarly, Americans are more time, but the economic fates of Americans are bound up in
comfortable with the idea of increasing opportunities for their family origins, then in an important sense opportuni-
success than with reducing inequality. When the American ties are still limited. If a poor child has little reason to believe
public is asked questions about the importance of tackling she can “grow up to be whatever she wants,” it may be of
each, a far higher proportion is in favor of doing some- little comfort to her that she will likely make more than her
thing about ensuring that more people have a shot at similarly constrained parents. A better-off security guard
climbing the economic ladder than is in favor of reducing may still have wanted to be a lawyer.
poverty or inequality.3
People do move up and down the ladder, both over their Why do some children do so much better than others? And
careers and between generations, but it helps if you have what will it take to create more opportunity? The remainder
the right parents. Children born into middle-income fami- of this paper addresses these two questions.
lies have a roughly equal chance of moving up or down
FINDINGS
• The majority (61%) of Americans achieve the American • Girls travel through childhood doing better than boys
dream by reaching the middle class by middle age, but only to find their prospects diminished during the adult
there are large gaps by race, gender, and children’s years.
circumstances at birth.
• The proportion of children who successfully navigate
• Success begets further success. Children who are through adolescence is strikingly low: only 57%.
successful at each life stage from early childhood to
• For the small proportion of disadvantaged children who
young adulthood are much more likely to achieve the
do succeed throughout school and early adulthood
American Dream.
(17%), their chances of being middle class by middle
• Children from less advantaged families tend to fall age are almost as great as for their more advantaged
behind at every stage. They are less likely to be ready peers (75% vs 83%).
for school at age 5 (59% vs 72%), to achieve core aca-
• Keeping less advantaged children on track at each and
demic and social competencies at the end of elemen-
every life stage is the right strategy for building a stron-
tary school (60% vs 77%), to graduate from high school
ger middle class. Early interventions may prevent the
with decent grades and no involvement with crime or
need for later ones. As the data provided in this paper
teen pregnancy (41% vs 70%), and to graduate from
make abundantly clear, success is a cumulative process.
college or achieve the equivalent income in their twen-
One-time interventions may not be enough to keep less
ties (48% vs 70%).
advantaged children on track.
• Racial gaps are large from the start and never narrow
• It’s never too late to intervene—people who succeed
significantly, especially for African Americans, who trail
in their twenties, despite earlier struggles, still have a
by an average of 25 percentage points for the identified
good chance of making it to the middle class.
benchmarks.
• Creating more opportunity will require a combination • Too little attention has been given to ensuring that more
of greater personal responsibility and societal interven- children are born to parents who are ready to raise a
tions that have proven effective at helping people climb child. Unplanned pregnancies, abortions, and unwed
the ladder. Neither alone is sufficient. Government does births are way too high and childbearing within mar-
not raise children, parents do. But government can lend riage is no longer the norm for women in their twenties,
a helping hand. except among the college-educated. Government has
a role to play here, but culture is at least as important.
• If one believes that good behavior and good policy
must go hand in hand, programs should be designed • As many have noted, a high-quality preschool experi-
to encourage personal responsibility and opportunity- ence for less advantaged children and reform of K-12
enhancing behaviors. schooling could not be more important.
• There are not just large, but widening gaps by socioeco- • Increasing the number of young people who enroll in
nomic status in family formation patterns, test scores, college is important, but increasing the proportion
college-going, and adult earnings. These gaps should who actually graduate is critical. Graduation rates have
be addressed or the nation risks becoming increasingly lagged enrollment. A major problem is poor earlier
divided over time. preparation. In addition, disparities in ability to afford
the cost of college mean that even equally qualified
• Budget cuts necessitated by the nation’s fiscal condition
students from low- and high-income families do not
should discriminate between more and less effective pro-
have the same college-going opportunities.
grams. The evidence now exists to make these discrimi-
nations. Some programs actually save taxpayer money.
Who Succeeds and Why? The data we use, from the National Longitudinal Survey of
In order to better understand the life course of children— Youth, follow children born primarily in the 1980s and 1990s
especially those who are disadvantaged—the Brookings starting in 1986 through 2010. We have projected their
Center on Children and Families has developed a life-cycle adult incomes using a statistical model. Our projections in
model called the Social Genome Model (SGM). The SGM childhood and adulthood in our final dataset closely track
divides the life cycle into six stages and specifies a set estimates from independent sources such as the Census
of outcomes for each life stage that, according to the Bureau and other surveys.7
literature, are predictive of later outcomes and eventual
economic success. These stages and indicators of success Figure 2 shows that by the time they are forty years old, six
for each life stage are detailed in Figure 1. The success out of ten children we follow to adulthood live in a family
indicators include being born to parents who are ready with income greater than 300 percent of the poverty line
to raise a child; being school-ready by age 5; acquiring (about $68,000 for a married couple with two children).8
core competencies in academic and social skills by age 11; In short, more than half have achieved the middle class
being college- or career-ready by age 19; living indepen- dream. At the same time, a large proportion (about 2 out
dently and either receiving a college degree or having an of 5) has not achieved the dream. The reasons are many,
equivalent income by age 29; and finally being middle but by looking at where children get off track earlier in life,
class by middle age. we can begin to see the roots of the problem.
As the figure shows, about two-thirds or more of all chil- in adulthood despite entering life inauspiciously. But they
dren get through early and middle childhood with the would almost certainly be better off if they had acquired
kinds of academic and social skills needed for later suc- more skills at an earlier age, and especially if they had navi-
cess. However, a large portion of adolescents fall short of gated adolescence more wisely.
achieving success even by a relatively low standard. Only a
little over half manage to graduate from high school with a Another way to give meaning to the success probabilities
2.5 GPA, having not been convicted of a crime or becoming in Figure 2 is to look at how success varies by different seg-
a parent by the time they turn nineteen.9 ments of the population. Figure 3 shows success rates by
gender. Boys and girls enter the world on an equal footing,
Success is nevertheless more common a decade later. but they take different paths on the way to adulthood. By
Sixty percent of children will live on their own at the end age five, girls are much more likely than boys to be academi-
of their 20s, either with a college degree in hand or with cally and behaviorally ready for school. That advantage
family income greater than 2.5 times that of a poor family. persists into middle childhood and adolescence. Men catch
Exceeding 250 percent of the up in early adulthood and then surpass women in terms of
poverty line amounts to about economic success. At age 40, 64 percent of men but just
Boys and girls enter the $45,000 for a married couple 57 percent of women have achieved middle class status.
with one child.10 It is roughly
world on an equal footing, equivalent to what a college- The finding that girls do better than boys during the school
but they take different paths educated individual the same years is not new. Girls mature earlier than boys and are
on the way to adulthood. age can expect to earn work- better able to sit still, follow directions, and thus benefit
ing full-time.11 People in their from classroom learning at a young age. Although girls
late twenties without a college are more likely to experience depression and face the risk
degree might achieve this col- of a pregnancy during adolescence, they are less likely to
lege-equivalent income through on-the-job training, living act out, drop out of school, or engage in behaviors such as
in a dual earner household, or by other means. delinquency, smoking, and substance abuse. 12
Putting the adolescent and adult results together, it appears Women are not only much more likely to graduate from
that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. There are second acts high school, but they now earn 57 percent of all college
in American lives; lots of people make it to the middle class degrees, and more graduate degrees, as well. Despite their
80%
70%
70% 66%
60% 61%
Percent Meeting Benchmark
60% 57%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Transition to Adulthood
(Age 5) (Age 11) (Age 19) Adulthood (Age 40)
(Age 29)
Female Male
80%
74%
71%
70%
65% 64%
61% 61% 60% 60%
Percent Meeting Benchmark
60% 57%
53%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Transition to Adulthood
(Age 5) (Age 11) (Age 19) Adulthood (Age 40)
(Age 29)
educational advantages, once they are adults, women still their family responsibilities, women’s labor force partici-
earn less than men. Although the earnings gap between pation and hours worked are still lower than men’s, and
men and women has declined sharply over the last half they are concentrated in occupations that pay less than
century, women who work full-time still earn about 80 those held by men. The extent to which these occupational
percent of what men earn. 13 The reasons for their lower differences reflect social constraints on women’s roles
earnings are related to the fact that, mainly as a result of versus their own preferences has been hard to sort out.14
60% 56%
52% 52%
50% 47%
43%
40% 39%
33% 34%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Transition to Adulthood
(Age 5) (Age 11) (Age 19) Adulthood (Age 40)
(Age 29)
Single parenthood also accounts for some of the gender middle class status by middle age. Even amongst those
gap in adulthood. Single mothers are much more common who do reach the middle class, their children are much
than single fathers. Even if they work, many single mothers more likely to fall down the ladder than the children of
disproportionately bear the burden of feeding additional white middle class families.16 While not shown, black-white
mouths with their paycheck compared to noncustodial gaps—and to a lesser extent Hispanic-white gaps—are
fathers, whose child support is often modest. sizable for both boys and girls, though they are bigger
among boys at the start of school and at the end of the
Other patterns of inequality high school years.
are much stronger. Figure
... parental income affects 4 shows that 68 percent of If success at each stage varies by race and gender, it varies
the likelihood of economic white children are school even more by the income of one’s parents (Figure 5). Only
ready at kindergarten, com- 48 percent of children born to parents in the bottom fifth of
success in adulthood, with
pared with 56 percent of family income are school ready, compared with 78 percent
75 percent of those born into black children and 61 per- of children in the top fifth at birth. The disparity is similar
the top fifth achieving middle cent of Hispanic children. 15 in middle childhood. Perhaps most stunningly, only one in
In middle childhood, African three children from the bottom fifth graduate high school
class status by forty versus American children fall further with a 2.5 GPA having not been convicted or become a
just 40 percent of those born behind, and by adolescence, parent. The figure among children from the top fifth is 76
into the bottom fifth. both African Americans and percent. Finally, parental income affects the likelihood of
Hispanics are far behind white economic success in adulthood, with 75 percent of those
children. By age 30, both are born into the top fifth achieving middle class status by forty
still lagging, though Hispanics versus just 40 percent of those born into the bottom fifth.
have done some catching up. By age 40, a whopping 33
percentage point difference between blacks and whites Finally, we have examined success rates for children who
persists. Only a third of African Americans have achieved are born into more or less advantaged circumstances,
70%
60%
52%
50% 48%
40% 38% 40%
33%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Transition to Adulthood
(Age 5) (Age 11) (Age 19) Adulthood (Age 40)
(Age 29)
80% 77%
72% 70 % 70% 71%
Percent Meeting Benchmark
70%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Transition to Adulthood
(Age 5) (Age 11) (Age 19) Adulthood (Age 40)
(Age 29)
defined more broadly than by their income quintile. narrows, and by the end of adolescence, children with
Among children born of normal birth weight to married less advantaged birth circumstances are 29 percentage
mothers who have at least a high school education and points less likely to succeed. At age 40, there is a 22 per-
who were not poor at the time of the child’s birth, 72 per- centage point gap between “advantaged-at-birth” and
cent can be expected to enter kindergarten ready for “disadvantaged-at-birth” children in the likelihood of being
school. Otherwise, only 59 percent do. This gap never middle class.
Figure 7: Probability of Being On Track or Falling Off Track, Conditional on Previous Experience
FAMILY
Born at normal birth weight to non-poor, married
FORMATION DISADVANTAGED
mother with at least a high school diploma
(AT BIRTH)
.28 .59
.72 .41
.82 .55
.65 .62
.71 .55
.76 .62
Table 1: Probability of Reaching the Middle Class by Number of Successful Outcomes and
Possible Pathways
artifact of the way we define success at age 29. Since it much more common than paths 3 and 4; recovery from
includes having an income of 250 percent of poverty, an early failure is relatively rare.
individual need only increase his or her income by about
20 percent over the next decade to become middle class
by middle age. The Importance of Cumulative Success
To summarize the data further, we calculate the probabil-
For this reason, in Table 2 we ignore the transition to adult- ity of reaching the middle class by middle age based on the
hood and consider how well particular paths through age number of life stages in which the individual experienced
19 predict middle class status at age 40. These six paths success (see Table 3). As already noted, an individual who
through adolescence cover 88 percent of the children in experiences a successful outcome at every life stage has
our sample, and the two paths involving three consecutive an 81 percent chance of achieving middle class status. The
successes or failures account for nearly half of all children. probability of achieving the American Dream decreases
At first glance, success or failure in early childhood seems with each additional unsuccessful outcome. An individual
less important than in subsequent stages. Children who who hits just one speed bump has a 67 percent chance of
succeed in all three stages have a 74 percent chance of reaching the middle class, dropping to 54 percent if there
being middle class at age 40, while those who are not are two unsuccessful outcomes, 41 percent with three
school ready but succeed in middle childhood and adoles- unsuccessful outcomes, and only 24 percent for those
cence have a 71 percent chance—essentially no difference. who are not successful under our metrics at any earlier
Comparing paths 2 and 4, which are identical except for stages in life.
early childhood, gives a similar impression.
Who are the children who succeed throughout life? They are
Concluding that early childhood success is unimportant, disproportionately from higher-income and white families,
however, would be wrong; if the primary way that school while those who are never on track are disproportionately
readiness affects the likelihood of becoming middle class from lower-income and African American families. For
is by directing people into more successful paths, that example, 19 percent of children from top-quintile families
fact would be obscured by comparisons such as these. stay on track throughout their early life while only 2 percent
If a child is school ready, there is a good chance she will of children from bottom-quintile families do. The figures
continue to succeed in later stages. If she is not, it is by race show that 32 percent of white children but only 10
relatively unlikely she will get on track. Paths 1 and 2 are percent of black children stay on track.
The fact that nearly one quarter (24 percent) of our off Unfortunately, birth circumstances are highly predictive
track sample of individuals (those failing at every one of the likelihood of achieving success in the four life stages
of our metrics) manages to achieve middle class status preceding middle age. If a child is born at a low birth weight
is a reminder that there are quite a few individuals who or has a mother who is poor, unmarried, or a high-school
are economically successful despite lack of success dur- dropout—circumstances we denote as “disadvantaged”—
ing school. Such individuals may be successful purely that child has only a seventeen percent chance of achiev-
out of luck, due to skills or personality traits that are not ing all four interim markers of success. Figure 8, below,
captured by our metrics, or by relying on support from shows the likelihood that an individual achieves success
another family member. at any particular number of life stages conditional on their
circumstances at birth.
25%
25%
23% 23%
20%
20%
17%
15% 13%
10% 8%
5% 4%
0%
0 1 2 3 4
Number of Successful Interim Life Stages
80%
75%
70%
70%
64% 63%
60%
51%
50%
44%
40% 36%
31%
30%
21%
20%
10%
0%
0 1 2 3 4
Number of Successful Interim Life Stages
Although Figure 8 shows that few children from less How Can We Help More Americans
advantaged backgrounds succeed at every life stage
Climb the Ladder?
through their twenties, it appears that when they do, they
are nearly as likely to reach the middle class as children
Since gaps between more and less advantaged children
born into more advantaged families. Figure 9 indicates
are large and getting larger, without a clear plan to pre-
that children from less advantaged families who stay on
vent the less advantaged from getting stuck at the bottom,
track have a 75 percent chance of joining the middle class,
we risk developing a society permanently divided along
compared with 83 percent
class lines. 17 But the results above reveal that while stay-
for their more advantaged
ing on track is very difficult, especially for disadvantaged
When children stay on track peers. On the other hand,
children, birth circumstances absolutely do not have to
while additional successes do
at each life stage, adult out- become destiny. Only a quarter of children succeed in all
increase the chances of end-
comes change dramatically. ing up middle class for disad- of the life stages before adulthood, while six in ten children
vantaged children, they often manage to reach the middle class at forty. Less advan-
increase the chances more for taged children who stay on track do almost as well as
advantaged children. In Figure 9, advantaged children are their more advantaged peers. To be sure, there will always
about as likely to end up middle class as disadvantaged chil- be unequal outcomes. Part of the correlation between
dren who have an additional success under their belt. For parental socioeconomic status and children’s later success
example, an advantaged child with no successes through may reflect differences in genetic endowments, and family
their twenties is nearly as likely to end up middle class as a environments will always matter to some extent.18
disadvantaged child with one success. Family background
matters because it tends to affect childhood success at When children stay on track at each life stage, adult
each stage of the life cycle but also because it affects the outcomes change dramatically. Parents who tell their
likelihood of ending up middle class even for children expe- children to study hard and stay out of trouble are doing
riencing similar trajectories through early adulthood. exactly the right thing. As President Clinton used to
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1. Obama 2011 22. The NFP program meets the Coalition for Evidence-Based
Policy’s top tier evidence standard, based on three well-
2. Romney 2011 conducted randomized controlled trials (Coalition for Evidence-
Based Policy 2011). NFP is also rated as having the highest
3. Pew Economic Mobility Project 2009; Isaacs 2008c; Haskins
number of favorable impacts of any home visiting program
and Sawhill 2009
(Paulsell et al. 2010). Its documented success stands out
4. Jäntti et al. 2006, D’Addio 2008; Björklund and Jäntti 2009, because a number of other home visiting programs have not
Ermisch et al. 2012, Corak 2012, Corak 2009 had significant effects on child outcomes when tested under
randomized assignment.
5. The Annie E. Casey Foundation 2012
23. Isaacs 2012
6. Isaacs 2008b; Economic Mobility Project 2012
24. Long-term experimental studies of preschool programs like
7. It is worth emphasizing that the only way to avoid projecting the Perry Preschool Project and the Abecedarian Project show
adult data for children would be to use a survey with actual adult lasting benefits, but policy makers have struggled to replicate
data. But in that case, the child outcomes would have occurred their success on a larger scale. Still, a recent meta-analysis of
decades ago, with questionable relevance to understanding the preschool program evaluations indicates that early childhood
likely mobility of today’s children. We cannot know what will hap- education has positive cognitive and social-emotional effects,
pen to today’s children with certainty until they are older; our though we don’t yet know which program characteristics or com-
dataset, with its projections, attempts to model what will happen bination of characteristics is responsible for the best outcomes
through careful statistical methods. For details on the model and (Barnett 2011; Camilli 2010).
its underlying data, see Winship et al. 2012.
25. Chetty et al. 2010
8. In 2011, poverty threshold for family of 4 with 2 children was
$22,811 (U.S. Census Bureau). 26. Reardon 2011
9. Note that due to data availability, this GPA is only for the 27. Murnane, Sawhill, and Snow 2012
individual’s last year of high school.
28. For excellent reviews, see Jacob and Ludwig 2009; Figlio
10. 2011 poverty threshold for family of 3 with one child is $18,106 2007–08; Loeb and McEwan 2010; Rouse and Barrow 2006.
(U.S. Census Bureau).
29. Borman et al. 2007
11. U.S. Department of Education 2011
30. For a discussion of programs that have demonstrated positive
12. Sax 2009; Bell 2012; Bandy 2012 impact on elementary school reading, including including tutor-
ing and summer reading programs, see Baron and Grannis 2012.
13. U. S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics
Administration and Executive Office of the President Office of 31. A recent meta-analysis of social-emotional learning research
Management and Budget 2011 found that on average, such programs improved both conduct
problems and academic performance by about a fifth to a
14. Kearney 2006 quarter of a standard deviation (Durlak et al. 2011)
15. Caution should be used in interpreting the Hispanic numbers. 32. Payton et al. 2005; Zins et al. 2004
In our data set, we only have children whose mothers were
in the United States in 1979. We do not have the children of 33. Riccio et al. 2010
anyone who immigrated to the United States after that (or any
34. High school dropout estimates are some of the most complicated
immigrant children). Our data should be interpreted as apply-
indicators to track, but James Heckman and Paul LaFontaine have
ing to children born to women who are already in the U.S. by
carefully shown that the graduation rate is lower than previously
adolescence. In addition, the number of Asian American, Native
understood and has declined over time. The decline has been
American and other children in our data is too small to support
concentrated among young white men, which has exacerbated
reliable conclusions about their success rates, so they are not
the situation, given the already low graduation rates of black and
included in Figure 4.
Hispanic men (Heckman and LaFontaine 2010).
16. Isaacs 2008a; Pew Economic Mobility Project 2012
35. Western and Pettit 2010
17. As detailed below, socioeconomic gaps in test scores, in college-
36. Kost, Henshaw, and Carlin 2010; National Campaign to Prevent
going, in marriage rates as well as in adult earnings are all
Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy 2012
widening. See also Sawhill 2012a; Murray 2012; Brooks 2012.
37. Bridgeland, Dilulio, and Morison 2006
18. New research has shown that there is a complicated interaction
between genes and the environment in which each affects the 38. Bloom, Thompson, and Unterman 2010; Bloom and Unterman 2012
other. For example, neuroscientists are finding that toxic stress
during childhood can affect a child’s later functioning. See, for 39. College Board 2005 cited in Deming and Dynarski 2010
example, Tough 2012; and Shonkoff et al. 2012.
40. Bailey and Dynarski 2011
19. The National Campaign 2008; Wildsmith et al. 2011
41. U.S. Department of Education 2012
20. McLanahan and Beck 2010
42. Bettinger et al. 2012; Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman 2009
21. Thomas 2012; Sawhill, Thomas, and Monea 2010; Sawhill 2012b
43. Deming and Dynarksi 2010
The authors thank Adam Thomas, Julia Isaacs, and Larry Aber
for their expertise and leadership on earlier stages of the Social
Genome Project. In addition, they are grateful for invaluable
assistance from Jeff Diebold, Alex Gold, Kim Howard, Quentin
Karpilow, Daniel Moskowitz, and Stephanie Owen.
The Brookings Institution
Center on Children and Families
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-797-6000
Fax: 202-797-2968
ccf@brookings.edu
www.brookings.edu/ccf