Category: children

Inequality from the Child’s Perspective: Social mobility in pandemic times

~ MilesCorak ~ Leave a comment

Watch my presentation about the three ways the disruptions and stresses of the COVID19 pandemic threaten the future prospects of children, the implications they have for the conduct of public policy, and the possibilities for future research.

This presentation was offered to the “Inequality by the Numbers” virtual workshop organized by The Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. The workshop includes a host of other presentations by my colleagues at The Stone Center and the affiliated fellows. Check them all out at this link: https://stonecenter.gc.cuny.edu/news-and-commentary/inequality-by-the-numbers-2020/

The COVID19 pandemic is a threat to social mobility, as children in disadvantaged families will face more challenges in adulthood

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The COVID19 pandemic will threaten social mobility. I examine three ways in which this is likely to happen in my presentation to the ZEW Seminar on COVID19 and inequality held on June 19th, 2020. This post summarizes the major messages.

Drawing on past research I see three aspects of inequality in the lower part of the income distribution that will be exacerbated and threaten the upward mobility of children raised in challenging circumstances.

But I begin by stressing that the United States has lower social mobility than many other rich countries in part because of a more vicious intergenerational cycle of low income, and this in turn has something important to do with race and a legacy of disadvantage among African-Americans.

The obvious challenge for public policy directed to enhancing equality of opportunity is to address the barriers that divide many from the mainstream, and to promote social inclusion of all.

1. Family is central to social mobility

But more specifically, COVID19 is likely to have exacerbated the challenges of parenting, family stress has likely gone up among some families, and in the extreme abusive relationships are more threatening and harder to leave. Separation and divorce may rise. From the perspective of the adult prospects of children, this will lead to delayed partnership formation, and more unstable relationships, even if it does not impact directly on their earning prospects.

2. Progressive public investment matters and should be supported

Social mobility is promoted by progressive public investment, particularly in health care and schooling. Many have already pointed out that the pandemic has exacerbated differences in schooling outcomes in the short term, as children in lower socio-economic families have gained much less from online learning than their counterparts. This is equivalent to the well documented loss in learning that occurs during summer months as well-to-do families enrich the child’s experiences in ways not available to others.

But in the longer run it will be very important to not cut back, indeed to increase, investment in high quality public schooling. An era of austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession led to cuts in public investments that should be avoided this time around.

3. Job loss and income falls echo into the next generation

Finally, if temporary layoffs morph into permanent job loss, and if public income support is inadequate this will imply a long-lasting decline in family income that will have long run consequences for children. The adult earnings of children raised in families where the main breadwinner permanently lost a high seniority job in mid career suffered. The parental income loss echoed into the child’s adulthood, the children experiencing lower income and greater reliance on public income support as adults.

For more detail, download my presentation and use the links to useful resources to learn more: “Inequality from the Child’s Perspective: Social mobility in Pandemic Times”

Poverty and equality of opportunity: three pictures to motivate policy for social mobility

~ MilesCorak ~ 3 Comments

Read my comments presented to the Public Economics Forum on “Intergenerationally Disadvantaged: Newest Evidence and What it Means for Policy,” organized by the Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research, on November 26th, 2019 in Canberra, Australia.

Social mobility varies across countries, but it varies in a particular way, a way that I argue is relevant for the conduct of public policy.

Inequality begets inequality. Up to 50% of income inequality is passed on to the next generation in countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States, but only 20% or even less in countries like Norway, Denmark and Finland, where there is a much smaller gap between parent incomes.

Incomes are stickier across generations where inequality is higher

But different kinds of inequality matter in different ways for social mobility.

Research using the variation of social mobility within countries like the United States and Canada shows that intergenerational cycles of low income are more likely in communities that have more bottom half inequality, the correlation with overall inequality and with top end inequality being much weaker. Upward mobility is easier when the poorest incomes are not that far off from middle incomes.

The bottom line for public policy is don’t let inequality increase in the bottom half of the income distribution, indeed strive to reduce it in a way that encourages labour market and social engagement.

Continue reading “Poverty and equality of opportunity: three pictures to motivate policy for social mobility” →

Equality of opportunity is a choice

~ MilesCorak ~ 2 Comments

Tony Atkinson, the great British economist, encourages us to think of inequality as a choice, something that can be influenced by public policy.

If this is the case for equality of outcomes, then it is surely also so for equality of opportunity; the significant differences in social mobility between the rich countries hinting at the role governments play in determining the degree to which family background is destiny, the rich raising the next generation of rich adults, the poor seeing their children face low chances of upward mobility.

Some of these differences may simply reflect different social priorities, but others may teach us about the power of different policies. Continue reading “Equality of opportunity is a choice” →

The changing nature of work calls for enhancing the human and financial capital of children in less wealthy families

~ MilesCorak ~ 1 Comment

The Canadian federal government should enhance the human and financial capital of children in less wealthy families, enhance market incomes of lower paid workers, and enhance the security of working incomes by adapting three existing programs to new realities: widening their scope, making them more flexible, and making them easier to obtain.

The changing world of work is also a changing world of pay, a world that will likely lean toward greater wage rate inequalities, lower or stagnating incomes for the bottom 40 percent, and greater income insecurity for the broad majority.

I suggest three changes to current public policies that take incremental, but important, steps toward fostering capital accumulation among children from less wealthy families, increasing market incomes earned from that capital for the working poor, and finally enhancing income security for the broad majority.

These policies lean toward encouraging inclusive growth, in which the benefits of the new world of work and pay are broadly shared.

In this post I discuss the first policy proposal, which is:

Enhance human and financial capital by making community colleges tuition-free, and making the Canada Learning Bond more flexible

Continue reading “The changing nature of work calls for enhancing the human and financial capital of children in less wealthy families” →

The Caledon Institute of Social Policy is Canadian social policy

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To understand the development of Canadian social policy during the last 25 years, you must appreciate the role of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, which closed it doors on November 30th, 2017.

The Maytree Foundation hosted a conference celebrating the Institute’s accomplishments, and paying tribute to the vision and energy of its principles: Michael Mendelson, Sherri Torjman, and its founder Ken Battle (whose engagement in social policy advocacy began under the pseudonym Grattan Gray).

The Institute’s publications are archived on the Maytree Foundation site. Maytree also published a tribute volume:  25 years of informing the debate: A tribute to the Caledon Institute of Social Policy .

The volume includes a timeline of major milestones in the impact Caledon had on social policy, and over 30 tributes from colleagues, social policy analysts, and public servants, including three Canadian Prime Ministers. Collectively they make interesting, informative, and very touching reading.

Here is my contribution, included in the volume, which you can download in its entirety.

Continue reading “The Caledon Institute of Social Policy is Canadian social policy” →