Probably everyone was said the importance of education and how knowledge can help us to succeed. Besides good schooling, there are plenty of other factors that influence our future working life. A late study has revealed a commonly ignored factor – the place, where you grow up. Doubtlessly, an average European child has better chances of upward mobility (the ability to rise to a higher level of income) than one living in Africa. But the research tackles the inequalities across the country rather than continents. The study has been conducted in the US and focused solely on different cities and districts within them.
The idea of creating an evaluation of opportunities for advancement based on the place of residence was a result of Raj Chetty’s curiosity. He is a Harvard University Professor of Economics and an economist.
We all have heard about privacy concerns associated with Big Data. Chetty’s study, however, has drastically changed the way people perceive such data and presents a great example of its practical implementation within society. “The availability of these types of data [Big Data] can really revolutionize our understanding of key social problems and lead us to better policies that can improve everyone’s welfare.”; “The power of these large data sets is that you can essentially find experiments when you have adequate data if you’re creative.”, Chetty says. Thanks to his work, various policy initiatives could have been undertaken to fight with inequality.
The graphic, being a result of the study, presents rates of upward mobility across the country. Simply saying it tracks US citizens born from 1980-82, and their income. In order to create the following diagram, millions of data have been used. It consists of income records of 20 million children and their parents across the US. The data was made accessible by the US Internal Revenue Service, which has provided tax data without information identifying private entities.
According to research, children who moved to areas characterised by lower-poverty achieved on average 31 per cent more earnings than those who didn’t. Moreover, those children had more chances of attending a college and live in better neighbourhoods.
In the below link you may find access to the website with precisely analysed data.
https://www.opportunityatlas.org/
Sources:
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/09/harvard-economist-raj-chetty-profile-people.htm
https://opportunityinsights.org/course/
https://www.businessinsider.com/income-inequality-upward-mobility-map-us-2018-2?IR=T
Very interesting research but it seems to me that your future depends more on the upbringing and environment in which you grew up than on the place in which you grew up.