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How is that calculated? 6 generations is 150 to 180 years. What do these numbers mean? What happens to a family after 3 generations? Is it then slightly up in the bottom 10%? Does it apply to all successors of the first generation? Who then is then after 6 generations the bottom 10%???
What about that one child in the poor family that makes “it” despite the dire outlook? Does it break that map??
Who have stats on my family 5 generations ago to know if where they sit in the national wealth scale of that time? (of a nation that did not even exist back then)
I guess I count as the first generation in my family to reach the mean income, and am the first to have a “proper” office job.
One of the things that I think holds people back most is the lack of office job etiquette and general work skills you can pick up from your parents for these sorts of jobs. My mother is an extremely hard worker, but all her advice and ideas about how to go about work just don’t apply.
It wasn’t until I got into my first office job that I looked around at other people and saw how they went about their work that I started to understand how you can do well in these environments. And I feel like people with parents who were already in these sort of roles were far better equipped to hit the ground running, and were already pushed in the right direction from an early age.
As someone from a similar background as you, I think this matters, but it’s not nearly as important as you believe. All it takes is a few days in the office to understand 80% of the required cultural norms. Most of them are plainly explained in the onboarding documentation.
The cultural delta between an international migrant and a local is FAR larger than between any classes. I know this from experience as I have lived in six countries now. In the case of these European countries, which are still relatively culturally homogenous, these cultural differences matter even less.
They study this, and certain behaviour (which can be taught) is important for career success. The good news is that these behaviours and values can and do transcend class and culture.
I think the differences we see in this research is related to structural economic and social policies. The Danish job market is excellent, for example, with lots of opportunities for people of all abilities, and high wages. They have a very strong economy. When coupled with free education for everyone, it means anyone in the bottom 10% can achieve median income quickly. Usually within one generation.
results suggest that goal-directed performance is fundamental to C and that motivational engagement, behavioral restraint, and environmental predictability influence its optimal occupational expression.
This is what I spent a lot of time unlearning from my upbringing though, and if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere in a professional environment.
In all the wrong ways I was taught to raise hell if something wasn’t right, but at the same time to “stay in my lane” for other things.
It’s head down, work hard, but don’t being looking up at opportunities or looking to make moves to get further. I was actively told to not go to university even when it was possible, and in a way I feel this held me back.
At the same time, if I was ever treated unfairly at work and discussed this with my mother, her advice is to outright refuse to do something. No looking to discuss and compromise as you’d expect in a professional environment.
I think it’s hard to put into words what I’ve needed to change, but I think that if I’d gone to university I would’ve picked up the necessary skills there instead.
I sympathise and relate. Perhaps our school systems need to teach kids these values. It may be too late by the time they hit school. I also wonder if it would be permitted in our highly polarised political climates.
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It is sad that it takes so many generations.
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I agree that it is peculiar given that the data is presented as the number of generations “it would take”. There is absolutely nothing related to access in Scandinavia (and presumably not in a number of other countries as well) that would prevent someone from the lowest social rung from becoming a top earner as a lawyer, doctor or whatever. I can only assume that the data is mislabeled; it must account for more intangible, personal and interpersonal social factors as well, and it must be based on historical data rather than opportunity in the here and now.
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My parents went to museums with us. We went to summer camps that provided educational activities (fun physics experiments and the like). We got home schooling for learning instruments and our parents were able to help with homework and satisfy our scientific curiosity. And of course we learned the soft skills of how to move in the upper middle class environments, how to approach job interviews and so on.
These aspects help tremendously in striving for a higher education and well paying job. It is also quite interesting to see in my families history, where my parents were the first to get an academic degree, but the grandparents of my parents were already skilled craftsmen, one with 4 master titles in different metal working crafts.
There is only so much the government can do and i’d say that two to three generations are probably the bottom line for how fast it can go on a societal level. In the other countries like Germany there is systemic class discrimination to keep the lower classes low.
even though opportunities might be equal, family culture has a large role in what happens in practice, for example if your parents have gone to university, you are far more likely to do so also.
It’s time to mean income, not stable living wage.
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Incomes don’t follow a bell curve, so the choice of mean income is a red flag to me. Imagine you had 9 citizens making 100k and one billionaire, the mean is now 100,090k.
Relatedly, being in the bottom 10% doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in these different countries, in some of them that might not be below the poverty line so it’s comparing apples and oranges.
If you worked in any larger company as well as looked at some of the people you studied with that somehow made the degree, and somehow got a well paying job even though they are idiots in that field, you should find plenty examples where it is not about trying or merit, but connections and favourable circumstance.
Daddy is in middle management? Well he’ll get his idiot son in a nice paying position. Danny really did not understand what his uni class was about, but he could just learn everything by repetition, while Michael was working night jobs to afford food and could not take all the exams that semester. Maria is really smart and aced in school, but instead of going to Uni in a different city she took a local job because her parents cant take care of themselves anymore and their retirement money barely covers the rent and utilities…
I found it very eye opening when talking with two people from Uni once. The one was talking about his side job. The other one was getting everything payed by her parents, went to travel to very nice places and always prepared well for exams. She then said she also thought about getting a student job so she gets some relevant experience and a foot in the door. We had to explain to her that we dont work for that,but because we have to pay our bills and that it is taking quite a toll on finishing the studies in time.
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Or could it be people already at the mean income look down on the poor and tend to choose someone from the mean income and above over someone below when the two people are otherwise equal?
It doesn’t even make sense.
I find this data very suspect. Greece is one of the poorer countries in the EU and somehow it takes fewer generations than far more rich countries like France and Germany? The only thing that makes sense is that they mention the mean salary, so Greek wages are so low that you don’t need much to get up into the mean salary range, I guess.
It doesnt matter as much how high your wage is relative to other countries, when i suffices to afford a middle class life in your country.
Germany is particularly bad, because we have a class segregated high school system and the assistance systems to help low income households to get their kids to study at an university are reaching less people and are also insufficient because the rates were not adjusted to inflation. Oh and also thanks to many loopholes in the inheritance tax rich people can inherit without taxation whereas middle class people have to pay taxes. Finally eastern Germany was colonized and sold pennys on the hundred dollar bills to the western German Elites, creating a huge wealth disparity where most people are simply prized out of investing into anything lasting.
You just answered your own question
So on average, the lineage in the bottom 10% needs 100+ years just to get to average pay? Does this mean the average is moving down or that the peoples wage is moving up?
