Designing a New National Survey on Social Mobility

National Academy Of Sciences, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project will plan a national study of recent and long-term trends in social mobility between generations in the United States. The National Research Council will ask scientific experts to write papers that explore survey design, instrument choice, variable choice, and analytical approach. These papers, together with discussion at the associated workshop, will inform a published summary. A second meeting of a smaller group will evaluate ideas aired at the workshop, discuss next steps, and begin writing a proposal for the new study. The U.S. is often understood to be a "land of opportunity" in which everyone can express their talents and meet their material needs. Thus, the public might imagine that the U.S. regularly monitors trends in intergenerational mobility, ensuring that policy makers and citizens know how much opportunity there is and how fairly it is distributed. That is not the case. Four decades have passed since the last large-scale national mobility survey, yet American society is vastly changed. The nation has seen increased income inequality, an altered industrial and occupational structure, rising immigration, changes in racial and ethnic composition, more complicated family structures, and changes in education and training. The effects of these changes should be assessed in a large-scale study of social mobility. Two large national surveys, in 1962 and 1973, provided the first reliable evidence on social mobility, led to new methods for measuring mobility, encouraged comparable surveys in dozens of countries, and ultimately changed the national conversation on the extent of mobility and how it might be increased. A third national survey may prove equally influential for research and policy in the coming decades.