The Effect of Class, Race/Ethnicity, Sex/Gender, and Age on Social Mobility for Everyday Americans

“U.S. lags most comparable nations—including France, Germany, and even Canada – when it comes to social mobility.” Social mobility is the ability to change positions in a social stratification system. It can be both upward mobility and downward mobility. Upward mobility means the position increase in the social stratification system. In contrast, downward mobility means a lowering position in the social stratification system. There are many factors that affect social mobility. Among them, race/ethnicity, sex/gender, and age work for, or against, social mobility in the US? My thesis is that class, race/ethnicity, sex/gender, and age harm social mobility in the US because of their inequality.

Class Inequality Impedes Social Mobility in the United States

Class, also known as social class, refers to a classification of people's rank in a specific society, usually based on wealth, education, and social status. It is usually divided into three categories: lower class, middle class, and upper class.

Sex/Gender Inequality Impedes Social Mobility in the United States

Sex refers that physical or physiological differences between males and females. Gender is according to the social or cultural distinctions of behaviors to define male or female. As we all know, gender stratification has a long history in the United States.

Although in the past, people have made a lot of efforts to eliminate some obvious inequalities for gender inequality, male-dominated ideas still exist. This gender inequality results in unequal access to basic, yet highly valuable, social resources. So, gender differences are also affecting social mobility.

Women are clearly better off than they used to be, mainly in terms of education and income levels. More than half of all bachelor's degrees are earned by women. Women also make up almost half of the workforce, and the same gender pay gap is shrinking, so their earnings have doubled. The status of women is rising, but the gender gap in social mobility is still large.

Two points can be clearly found in the two figures. First, women are more likely to fall behind than men. Second, it is harder for women than men to escape from the bottom. This means that the improvement of women's status has not translated into greater social mobility. Men, by contrast, are more socially mobile than women. However, it also makes it harder for men to move up because of the large number of women with college degrees entering the workforce. It can be seen that gender is always against social mobility due to inequality.

Race/Ethnicity Inequality Impedes Social Mobility in the United States 

Race and ethnicity categories that have a lot in common. The common things of race tend to be physical characteristics, while ethnicity tends to be cultural factors. Ethnicity in the United States is divided into four main categories: White, Black, Latino, and Asian. There is a lot of racial inequality in the United States. The Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University report concludes that “the deck is stacked against Blacks because they are dealt an immediate ‘one-two punch’ at the very moment of birth. They are not just more likely to be born into families with less wealth, education, and income, but they are also more likely to live in poor neighborhoods where high-quality schools are more difficult to find, crime is high, and other amenities are unavailable”. Under so many inequalities, it directly leads to income inequality. By analyzing incomes in the United States over the period 2000–2014 by racial and ethnic group, “We find, as expected, large differences in income shares across racial and ethnic groups over this period. What is more startling is the persistence of disadvantage of certain minority groups relative to whites at every point in the income distribution”. “This picture that emerges is of a rigid distribution of income, with whites, Asians, and (to a lesser extent) those in the Other group protected at the top, and all other groups confined to the bottom”. The amount of income is an important indicator of social mobility. Except for whites and a small number of Asians, those groups that are limited to the bottom are hard to move to the upper class through their own efforts. There are too many inequalities between ethnic and they have a limiting effect on their efforts.

Age Inequality Impedes Social Mobility in the United States

The age here is also called age stratification, which is to stratify members of society according to age. It is the same as stratifying the members of society by race, class, and gender. Getting older is inevitable. However, the elderly always experience inequality and discrimination because of their age. The extreme disparity in income and wealth distribution has a real and distinct impact on older adults. According to the latest data, more than 7 million older adults are living below the Federal Poverty Line, per the Supplemental Pov­erty Measure. This number will increase to 72 million by 2030. A 2016 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that half of all Medicare beneficiaries have incomes below $26,200 per year; while 25 percent have incomes below $15,250. Only 5 percent have incomes above $103,450. So many elderly people live below the poverty line, and their health and safety are not guaranteed. Age inequality keeps them at the bottom of society and impedes social mobility.

In the United States, moving up is becoming more and more difficult. This is concluded by Michael D. Carr and Emily E. Wiemers, two economists at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “In the presence of increasing inequality,” they conclude, “falling mobility implies that as the rungs of the ladder have moved farther apart, moving between them has become more difficult.” All of these are well explained that class, race/ethnicity, sex/gender, and age harm social mobility in the US because of their inequality. As the Race Matters Institute says, “The route to achieving equity will not be accom­plished through treating everyone equally. It will be achieved by treating everyone equitably, or justly, according to their circumstances.”

References

1. Noah, Timothy. “Sorry Conservatives - America's Mobility Problem Is Real.” MSNBC, NBCUniversal News Group, 23 May 2014, .
2. Reeves, Richard V., and Joanna Venator. “Gender Gaps in Relative Mobility.” Brookings, Brookings, 29 July 2016, .
3. [bookmark: OLE_LINK11][bookmark: OLE_LINK12]Akee, Randall, et al. Race Matters Income Shares, Income Inequality, and Income Mobility for All U.S. Races. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017.
4. Noah, Timothy. “The Mobility Myth.” The New Republic, 8 Feb. 2012, .
5. 'Stanford University Report Documents Persisting Racial Inequality in the United States.' Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Online), 2017. ProQuest, .
6. [bookmark: OLE_LINK17]Race Matters Institute. 2014. “Racial Equality or Racial Equity? The Difference it Makes—Advanc­ing Racial Equity.” Baltimore, MD: Race Matters Institute. goo.gl/9hJYr2. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
7. Cubanski, J., et al. 2018. How Many Seniors Are Living in Poverty? National and State Estimates Under the Official and Supplemental Pov­erty Measures in 2016. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation.
8. Jacobson, G., et al. 2017. Income and Assets of Medicare Beneficia­ries, 2016-2035. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation. goo.gl/HjXVSQ. Retrieved January 26, 2018.