Prerequisite for social advancement: access to a good school education. Getty Images
The American dream promises everyone a fair chance for social advancement. For us, the proverbial motto is “from rags to riches”. In Germany, on the other hand, there are complaints about a lack of social permeability. An international study puts these prejudices in perspective: In Germany today, the chances of advancement are better than in the USA. Remain important: Access to education and social security.
“America, You Have It Better”, wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe almost 200 years ago about the spirit of optimism in the democratic United States, free from the traditions of feudal Europe. For generations, the USA was the country of longing – and still is. Above all, the disadvantaged dream the “American dream” of a fair chance for social advancement. Sociologists would say the American Dream promises upward social mobility, the chance to succeed no matter what the circumstances. In Europe, on the other hand – especially in Germany – people often complain that this social permeability is missing. The origin even increasingly determines the success.
“Germany, you have it better” is how one could summarize the results of new international analyses. They show that the chance of realizing the American dream is greater today in Germany or in countries like Denmark and Australia than in the USA.
The research teams examined the extent to which poverty persists across generations in several countries. They published the results of their comparison under the title „The Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty in High-Income Countries“. Teams from Bocconi University, the Rockwool Foundation and Stockholm University were involved in the study.
Their result: “Intergenerational poverty is four times more widespread in the USA than in Denmark and Germany and still twice as widespread as in Australia and Great Britain.”
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The table shows what the research teams refer to as “intergenerational persistence of poverty” in five countries surveyed.
The value they determined for the persistence of poverty in the USA is 0.43. This means that people who spent their entire childhood in poverty have a 43 percentage point higher risk of also being poor in early adulthood – compared to adults who were not affected by child poverty. In Denmark, on the other hand, this value is only 0.08. In Germany, the risk of poverty for children from poor backgrounds is 15 percent higher.
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The other way round, one can say that the chances of a child growing up in poverty to climb out of poverty by young adulthood are significantly greater in Denmark and Germany than in the USA.
The scientists also examined possible reasons for the different promotion opportunities. They found that they have less to do with the quality of education than is widely assumed. Racial discrimination or place of residence are also not decisive. This is indicated by the fact that poverty in the USA is very pronounced across all races and regions.
The persistence of poverty over generations, on the other hand, has a lot to do with the tax system and social security.
“The USA is the archetype of a liberal welfare state, which is characterized by basically open access to education and employment, high income returns for higher education and comparatively weak social protection against risks in adulthood,” say the researchers.
In the USA, a phenomenon is also particularly pronounced, which the researchers call “residual poverty penalty”. What is meant by this are the scars that a childhood in poverty can leave behind in people. In the US, the disadvantages for children growing up in poverty are greater than for similar groups in other countries. An example of this is the poorer access to adequate health care for US citizens with low incomes.
The results of this new study have also confirmed other similar investigations in the past. So wrote Pedro Nicolaci da Costa already in 2017 that Great Britain, Canada and Denmark have a greater chance of social mobility offer than the USA.
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A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that compared to other advanced economies, the US has a lower intergenerational income mobility exhibit – and that this mobility has declined over the past 40 years.
In Germany, numerous studies have come to the conclusion that origin is still a determining factor for success at school, in professional life and for social status in adulthood. However, they rarely look at the comparison to other countries. In April, the Leipzig sociologist Holger Lenfeld wrote in an essay in “Mirror” under the heading “We’re doing better than we think” among other things, one cannot speak of a socially leveled society in Germany – a society in which classes are assimilated to one another. “But if you take stock of the long, centuries-old history of social inequality, it will be positive, no matter how careful you are. With the historically highest level of mass prosperity, the best state of health and the highest life expectancy, the most extensive protection against social risks and a still high level of social permeability in society, the population in this country has probably never been better off than it is today.”
More details too The study and its methodology can be found here.
The gist of the article first appeared on Business Insider in the US under the title: „You’re more likely to live the American dream in Germany, Denmark, or Australia“. You can read the original here.
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