Thanks-- that's useful: "More than 90 percent of the entrepreneurs came from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds and were well-educated."
I'm curious about the socio-economic background of the parents as well.
I'm curious about the socio-economic background of the parents as well.
If you are born to parents in the lowest quartile you have ~10% chance of making it into the highest by age 26. For people born in the highest the probability is ~30%.
(and if it was random it would, obviously, be 1/4 = 25%)
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america...
Another problem is that because the distribution is so heavily skewed toward the top (for both income and wealth, but more heavily for wealth), dividing the population into equal groups creates a somewhat misleading picture of mobility. A nonlinear breakdown of classes is more reflective of the distribution. In that case we might ask something like how many people move from the bottom 40% to the top 5%.
Although for some questions, e.g. "Can you escape poverty in the US today?" (which could be specified as moving from 1st -> 3rd quartile) this data works.
But, for other types of questions, e.g. "Is extreme wealth mostly hereditary?" you'd need a non-linear breakdown of classes.