Researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the Census Bureau recently published an
Anonymous earnings and demographic data gathered from 20 million children in America revealed how incomes varied in their adulthood — virtually every American in their 30s — based on their demographic, reports The New York Times.
One of its findings indicated that discrepancies continue between Black and White boys despite growing up in families with the same income, family structures, education levels, and even amount of accumulated wealth.
Based on the study titled “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Inter-generational Perspective,” White boys who grow up rich tend to remain wealthy, while rich Black boys are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy as they grow into adults.
Compared with Asian-Americans, however, Caucasians appear to have slightly lower upward mobility.
While both Asians and Whites are more likely to move up the income ladder than go down it, children of Asian immigrants in general have been found to slightly edge them out. As for Asian-American children whose mothers were born in the United States, they at least fare just about equally well with White kids.
The research further revealed that Asian-American women significantly have higher upward mobility than both White and Black women.
Interestingly, when Asian-Americans are further segmented by genders, poor Asian girls were found to be more likely to end up as rich adults than Asian boys who grew up in poverty.
If both genders from Asian-American families start rich, they all fare equally with at least half of each segment retaining their wealth and only a tenth from each becoming poor.
The study further establishes that White men earn more than almost anyone else, while both Hispanic and Black Americans of both genders grow up to earn less.
And while trends show Hispanics are likely to close the gap in several generations, Blacks are not seen to do the same.
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