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The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income and Black-White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances
[journal article]
Abstract Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black-white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and chil... view more
Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black-white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions.... view less
Keywords
inequality; income; social stratification; intergenerational mobility; United States of America; prosperity; equal opportunity; childhood; deprivation; people of color; social inequality
Classification
Social Problems
Macrosociology, Analysis of Whole Societies
Free Keywords
racial inequality; stratification; wealth
Document language
English
Publication Year
2020
Page/Pages
p. 599-627
Journal
Sociological Science, 7 (2020)
ISSN
2330-6696
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed