There is a new study out that shows that the best indicator to predict upward mobility in America is who your friends are. My brother, who sent me the study, and I have understood that for some time.
We were born into a working-class family. Our father began work as a roughneck in the oil fields. (An oil-field roughneck is an untutored laborer.) Our mother was a high-school dropout. But in 1948 they bought four acres for four thousand dollars on the Palos Verdes peninsula (near Los Angeles). Our father came from a horse trading, very small ranch family, and he just wanted to be around acreage, horses, saddles and guns, I think.
It turned out that Palos Verdes resembled a bucolic Beverly Hills. My brother and I grew up in countryside where all our friends had begun life in the upper middle class. We actually rode around on horses. Eventually, of course, like our friends we automatically enrolled in college, read Rilke, learned professions, etc.
America is no longer the world leader in upward social mobility. I forget exactly where we are ranked-- about 25th among nations. But if you want your children to climb through our caste system, see the plan above.
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