Research Catalog

Title

Unequal chances : family background and economic success / edited by Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne Groves.

Publication

New York : Russell Sage Foundation ; Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2005], ©2005.

Supplementary Content

• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Bowles, Samuel.
• Gintis, Herbert.
• Osborne Groves, Melissa.

Description

vi, 304 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting ahead, why? And if the processes that transmit economic status from parent to child are unfair, could public policy address the problem? Unequal Chances provides new answers to these questions by leading economists, sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and philosophers." "New estimates show that intergenerational inequality in the United States is far greater than was previously thought. Moreover, while the inheritance of wealth and the better schooling typically enjoyed by the children of the well-to-do contribute to this process, these two standard explanations fail to explain the extent of intergenerational status transmission. The genetic inheritance of IQ is even less important. Instead, parent-offspring similarities in personality and behavior may play an important role. Race contributes to the process, and the intergenerational mobility patterns of African Americans and European Americans differ substantially."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Equality > Psychological aspects > Congresses
• Inheritance and succession > Social aspects > Congresses
• Income distribution > Social aspects > Congresses
• Families > Economic aspects > Congresses
• Social status > Psychological aspects > Congresses
• Social mobility > Psychological aspects > Congresses

Note

• Research from a workshop, "Persistent Inequality in a Competitive World," and from other projects funded by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to the Santa Fe Institute.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-296) and index.

Contents

Introduction / Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis and Melissa Osborne Groves -- Ch. 1. The apple does not fall far from the tree / Greg Duncan, Ariel Kalil, Susan E. Mayer, Robin Tepper and Monique R. Payne -- Ch. 2. The apple falls even closer to the tree than we thought : new and revised estimates of the intergenerational inheritance of earnings / Bhashkar Mazumder -- Ch. 3. The changing effect of family background on the incomes of American adults / David J. Harding, Christopher Jencks, Leonard M. Lopoo and Susan E. Mayer -- Ch. 4. Influences of nature and nurture on earnings variation : a report on a study of various sibling types in Sweden / Anders Bjorklund, Markus Jantii and Gary Solon -- Ch. 5. Rags, riches, and race : the intergenerational economic mobility of black and white families in the United States / Tom Hertz -- Ch. 6. Resemblance in pesonality and atittudes between parents and their children : genetic and environmental contributions / John C. Loehlin -- Ch. 7. Personality and the intergenerational transmission of economic status / Melissa Osborne Groves -- Ch. 8. Son preference, marriage, and intergenerational transfer in rural China / Marcus W. Feldman, Shuzhuo Li, Nan Li, Shripad Tuljapurkar and Xiaoyi Jin -- Ch. 9. Justice, luck, and the family : the intergenerational transmission of economic advantage from a normative perspective / Adam Swift.

ISBN

0691119309 (cl : alk. paper)

LCCN

2004050521

OCLC

• ocm55286364
• SCSB-5135587

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries