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noknownothing t1_is89ei2 wrote

Um, was a study really necessary?

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phdoofus t1_is8pq2l wrote

If you're trying to convince say a legislator to do something and you only have your opinion and personal experience to back you up, what do you think esp if said person has a lot of doubts and resistance? How about getting people to support your efforts?

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Current-Escaper t1_is8ligq wrote

I take it you’re a fellow lower class denizen, because yes. But not for you.
Yes, studies such as this are absolutely valid to the human experience, and are worth their time to document for the ignorant. The trouble is, those that it would enlighten most either won’t read it or outright deny it on personal experience biases.
I’ve been made to understand that a notable number in higher-classes indeed believe that those in lower classes are truly just not working hard enough and are afforded the same privileges they experience.

“I mean it’s one banana, Michael, what could it cost, 10 dollars?”

As quaint a line as it is, I think it may be pointedly apt to some who share the portrayed character’s class aspirations

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[deleted] t1_is8o9uz wrote

[deleted]

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Current-Escaper t1_is8pvgr wrote

Apologies. My first statement was flippantly presumptuous.
I do feel though, and I don’t necessarily mean you, there is still a notable number as I described to warrant such a study

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burlapturtleneck t1_is9e3sq wrote

It is important to remember in the testing of whether the impact is there, it is also estimating the size of that effect which makes it valuable.

In addition, there are a lot of things that we would have said a similar thing to that were shown to be false upon doing the actual research. People are prone to all sorts of cognitive biases that make us think we know some things that aren’t true at all. A common thing discussed is “learning styles” (eg auditory, visual, tactile) which is spouted as fact by many and I would expect quite a number of people to not think it is even worth studying because it is so clearly true. Despite this, there is a large body of evidence showing that this is not a thing. It is important to have a healthy level of exploring of what we think we know to continue developing as individuals and a society

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Spambot0 t1_isaa65b wrote

In general, the newspaper headline and the purpose of the study are not strongly correlated.

But it's also often useful to quantify things that are qualitatively obvious.

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the1ine t1_isbrr4o wrote

Yes, given the large number of enterprises whose official policies are gender biased.

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Bob_Sconce t1_is8egwb wrote

First of all, I LOVE that this article is putting the conclusion up-front, like newspapers used to do, instead of trying to force readers to read through. Maybe it's because they don't have ads.

Secondly, here's the conclusion:

>In a study of more than 8,000 professionals and higher-level managers, researchers found that those who came from a wealthy background were much more likely to move around the UK, and live in some of the most affluent areas, compared to those from working-class backgrounds.

That's a really odd definition of 'success.' Look at "professionals and higher-level managers" and, instead of defining success as "being a professional or higher-level manager," define it as "moving around the UK."

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seedanrun t1_is95u25 wrote

I think the point is that wealthy people are more likely to move to an area with good schools and jobs - while less wealthy are more likely to stay put.

That said - their conclusion that you can help the poor by giving them more access to better area does not seem the true solution. If your parents understand credit cards, mortgages and investing - then they will pass that information on to their children. And if your parents do NOT understand those thing -they are a struggle to learn by trial and error on your own. I honestly thing having financially wise parents can not be replaced by going to a good school. They don't teach financial wisdom at school.

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Bob_Sconce t1_is9wvjq wrote

Except that it's comparing two groups of wealthy people -- they're all "professionals and upper management."

I think the more likely reason is that those who grew up in working-class families have tighter connections to their extended families. As a result, they are less likely to move away.

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Ineedavodka2019 t1_isa504m wrote

Why would they have tighter connections to their extended families? So to increased need to rely on them? Why wouldn’t a “professional” have a similar need? (Honest question, the answer seems obvious but I wanted to see your opinion.)

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Bob_Sconce t1_isaaz6b wrote

I have no idea. Maybe it's because their working-class families rely on them more. Maybe it's because as people become wealthier, they become more self-centered or develop more of an "anything for the job" ethic. Maybe it's because working-class families tend to pressure their family members to stay put more than "professional" families do.

I'm in the US. My grandparents were I think what we'd call "working class." My father was an attorney and we lived 15 minutes from my mother's family, and 90 minutes from my father's. My siblings and I are all professionals and we all live 400+ from where we grew up (my sister is 2500+ miles). So, I see the dynamic in my own life. However, our experience could easily be distinguished just by time -- maybe people moved less in the past than they do now.

I'm also a little skeptical of the ability to test the hypothesis when the subject population are all on a 80,000 square mile island.

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Ineedavodka2019 t1_isak78m wrote

I am also in the US and have a similar experience although my grandparents came from working class and then my grandfather was a partner in a large firm. My parents went backwards to working class.All of them stayed near family. Now my husband and I are professionals and live in his hometown (far from my family), however, his siblings live around 2 hours away and not near any family and are also professionals. In our town there are many working class families, I would even say the majority of households, and I think some of why they stay put is due to lack of perceived opportunities and a sense of doing what they know. I think a lot of people kind of just do what they were brought up to know. Similar to financial literacy.

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Wonderful_Mud_420 t1_isahw53 wrote

Not sure how broad it goes and how different it is in the U.S. but finance was thought in my university. It WAS an elective for me and the professor didn’t even study finance! He became wealthy through his business and sold it off for millions.

Not sure if it gets more in depth than what he thought us but basically 1)Invest to grow wealth, can be in stocks or your own business 2) Use credit cards and loans as leverage not as a temporary fix to your immediate cravings, an example I use is, I use my business credit to buy materials for a project way before and pay it all off during the first progress payment, only do this if you have a solid contract and know the clients/contractors have the money for it 3) Live way below your means, I save 25% of my income, can do 50% but i prefer my own place but it can be done with more sacrifice 4) Build skills that will help a lot of people, reason software engineers are paid a bunch is because they can automate many tasks that sometimes would take a whole staff to do [im not a software engineer]

Is there anything else about money that the affluent are teaching their kids that we can’t just learn on our own? They have money and connections to start them off quicker but that’s life and opportunities are not evenly distributed

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seedanrun t1_isb43vg wrote

There is a huge number of useful money skills and techniques, but they vary depending on how you invest and your life style. The basics that class hits are the most important and universal- that class seems exactly what is needed.

And the guy teaching it IS a successful retired wealthy person. I think having someone who actually lived it is key which would be hard to find for every school.

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cratermoon t1_is97rc7 wrote

You've touched on something important, though. Who defines what "success" means? If your definition of success is "what people who have a lot of money say is success", and "having a lot of money" is a marker for being in the class of "successful" people, then yes.

People whose lives align with the definition of success will certainly be more likely to succeed. But at some point we've hit a circularity, where success is defined as what successful people achieve.

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cynopt t1_is8edpb wrote

50,000 years and still going strong, way to be, haves!

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Freds_Bread t1_is80do7 wrote

Let's see:

If people are allowed to bequeath some of their savings/goods to their children, then inheriting more is better than inheriting less.

Families who have inherited more, tend to live in more expensive areas.

People who grew up with less often value being closer to family more than people who grew up with more material goods.

But in essence the study sounds side the authors think these things are inherently bad.

They really should come out and say what the apparently believe: when you die you should be able to pass nothing on to your children.

That may be "fairer" in some people's perspective, but it certainly comes with some other less desirable results.

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Anustart15 t1_is8c9uu wrote

>when you die you should be able to pass nothing on to your children.

Even this wouldn't really be enough. A lot of the benefits of having family from the upper class come from the better education, connections, and opportunities, not just the money

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bjornbamse t1_is8l6qm wrote

Yes, wealth is not just money. It is life knowledge and wisdom, self confidence, acceptance among people, habits.

Wealth is a multi-generational project. This is not inherently bad or unfair. What we need is to use this process to help rise more people. Help parents in need, so that they can get knowledge necessary, but also help kids move beyond their parents, help them get out of the lock-in effects.

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seedanrun t1_is965nr wrote

We need some classes that teach about credit cards, dept, mortgages and credit scores in high school to start. And those need to be updated every 3 years.

We also need some classes about investing, passive income, and long term career planning - but I don't really think schools can teach this - I mean, what % of high school teachers really understand it?

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Current-Escaper t1_is8nui9 wrote

I think there may be an implication that if your children don’t inherit anything another logical place for the inheritance to go would be into some of those community enrichment institutions and resources. Perhaps thereby closing the gap of which you speak.
I figure the rich don’t get rich from their own hard work alone, more so the higher you go. Money isn’t manifested by an individual, it takes many to facilitate the twisted funnels they’ve created and we’ve grown accustom to. It makes sense to me that perhaps to redistribute the wealth to the benefit of infrastructure/community/humanity would be far more prosperous for everyone, not just the currently living relatively fortunate few, than to morbidly hoard it to the detriment of the majority.

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Freds_Bread t1_is8tyku wrote

But how do you assess or evaluate these two situations:

A small family business. A fruit stand, an auto mechanic shop, etc. Of you do not allow a parent to pass that to a child who wants to continue the business then you cannot really benefit "the community" by taking it away. In fact, in many cases the community is worse off for the loss of the business.

In the second situation you have two people who earn the same in their lifetimes. One spends everything as quickly as they earn it. The other lives more modestly, saving some for old age. But when the second one dies you take what they saved. In that case you are strongly reinforcing people to spend and not save. I do not think that helps a society.

The final problem I see with your no-inheritence approach is the parent who dies prematurely, leaving minor children behind. It is not a benefit to anyone to leave the children with nothing pecause the parent died.

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seedanrun t1_is96hxn wrote

You've actually got a really good point.

If I knew the government was going to take all my Dad's cash I would help him blow every last penny before he died. Word vacations, on-site massages, and 100% Door-Dash eating until we burn it all away.

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NEIC_ADMIN t1_isa36to wrote

Yep. The unspoken knowledge. When you are raised around high status people, you benefit from their connections, from learning upper class sociolect, mannerisms, style of dress, hobbies, even gait.

Me and my friend noticed years ago that poor men, unlike all other people in society, tend to swagger instead of walk. If you gave a poor man a good haircut and nice clothing that fit, you would still be able to tell he's poor because of his gait.

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xDulmitx t1_is8erqx wrote

It's ok when you die someone will come along with a hammer to fix those advantages.

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Illustrious-Gas-9766 t1_isa97tw wrote

If you grow up in a household where you see people doing things to improve themselves and/or their lives you are more likely to follow that example.

Imagine that you see your parents making decisions about buying a house, or refinancing a house. You see mom/dad taking classes to improve their job or finding a new job.

Then you experience the results of those actions. Better home, better cars, better life.

How can this not influence you later in life.

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External-Tiger-393 t1_isc0krk wrote

There is also the fact that if you have generational wealth and connections through your family, your life is just a whole lot easier than if you don't. A lot of stuff that has totally fucked different members of my family over would be a complete non-issue to my boyfriend's family, simply due to the income disparity.

My sister couldn't afford to go to university despite being a straight A student, so she dropped out for 3 years. My bf's sister has her immediate and extended family covering $100k/y in tuition and living expenses per year while she's in university. There was never even a chance for my bf's sister to have that problem.

If people are less stressed and have more medical, educational and financial resources in life, they are more likely to succeed. Poorer people tend to have far fewer of these options (if they have them at all) than people who come from families with money.

You can't always get out of the poverty trap simply by trying to improve yourself. That's why it's called the poverty trap. You can increase your chances, but I don't think it's fair to act as if poor people have simply given up on their own lives and don't know how to act. People take the best options available to them, but that doesn't help if all of your options are terrible.

Edit: people in this thread are talking all about how wealthier people "emphasize learning and education" but seem to conveniently miss the fact that you can make straight As in high school and not afford college, or how you can technically go to school but you can't pay for your living expenses while you're there, so it's still not an option. Or you can need health care to be functional enough to go to school and make good grades, but if you're from a poorer family than that may not be available either. Or your siblings all need your help or they're going to get fucked too, or your parents are sick, or whatever else that your family might not have the financial resources to solve without you giving up on your dreams.

Talking about culture is a form of intentional ignorance if you're going to ignore how that culture forms in the first place, why it persists, and what is actually happening.

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i_have_thick_loads t1_is9qjcl wrote

Sure background helps but we know from adoption and twin studies there's a confounding heritable genetic component to adult life achievement. I do recall a study on the UK finding the society is highly meritocratic - high ability people have the same life outcomes regardless of background

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gordonjames62 t1_isc2td4 wrote

In the English speaking world (my world) I see the UK as possibly the most class conscious.

As a Canadian from the middle class it is easy to see that we have more class mobility than my friends from USA or UK.

Australia may also have a higher class mobility.

It is not rocket science that people with all the advantages of education and money and family connections might have a social and economic boost that shows up in terms of wealth.

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kischde93 t1_is9ex6n wrote

Obviously, but what can be done about this issue?

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[deleted] t1_isajrh9 wrote

More importantly, should anything be done about this issue?

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ragavan_control t1_isbby1u wrote

This is partially due to inherited culture, not automatic privilege as most of the crybabies on here want to assume.

If you grow up with parents who became wealthy because they believed in emphasizing academic success and hard work, which in turn causes you to emphasize academic success and hard work, was it really an unfair advantage that you’ve obtained?

You’ve benefited from the positive culture imparted on you by a successful upbringing. Why should this not be celebrated as a good thing?

If anything more studies should be done to look into the link between poor parenting and generational poverty. The world is fucked if instead of asking ourselves “How can we raise the bar?” we ask “How can we lower the ceiling?”

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JonathanPhillipFox t1_is85qcy wrote

This is unsurprising, when one considers what gets rolled up into, "Class," Consists of, Fundamentally, all of those things which their are Cultural Biases Towards or against, Historically, but, Historically, like, as-per-yesterday; and I'm reminded of a Swedish Socialist Line,

>Beware the Myth of an Ethical Meritocracy

What could this mean, well,

  • If we live in a Rich Enough Country, it would not be ethical to ask, "How can the Gifted become Accomplished,"
  • When we could, if we'd like to, ask, "What do the Least of Us Deserve," let me elaborate,
  • How do we get the Talented, "Poor," Kid in a, "bad," and Ethnic Neighborhood Into Graduate Education, that's the Former Question,
  • How Much Does the Least Qualified Deserve,
    • **and I don't mean, "**Par, adjusted for circumstances,"
    • I mean, "Truly, unqualified,'
    • e.g. the Alcoholic Who Takes tickets at the Movies and Doesn't Show Up Half the Time, of a Higher-than-average intelligence, from an above-average economic background, speaks the majoritarian dialect and reads at an above-average level
      • Does This Person Deserve to Live at all, some people say, "No,"
      • Others say, "yes," but that this person does not deserve Housing, in Saint Louis, Warrant Sweeps of Public Housing, ensure, that People Convicted of Felonies Sleep outside in the 0 Degree Fahrenheit Winters,
      • Others say, "yes," but that this person does not deserve To Eat, Necessarily, Here in Saint Louis People Convicted of Trivial Felonies, distribution of marijuana, plea deal as a teenager under-represented in their defense, do not qualify for food assistance, ever again
      • If You say, "Life in Principle, Life In Fact, Housing," then what where does it stop, non-rhetorical, Does that person deserve public dignity, does that person deserve to have a Life that can provide for their children to survive into an adulthood worth living, Does that Person, "Deserve," education for their children?
    • If you answer these in the affirmative, there is neither the Hellscape to Escape through Education nor the Deficits to attainable Potential to begin with, right?
    • Through this exercise, we can see that the former question is a Devil's Bargain that ensures it's own impossibility
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caucasoidape t1_is8bgrx wrote

Mmmmmmm yes yes yes yes!

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