When most people think about intergenerational mobility, they often assume it unfolds gradually over long periods of time, which unintentionally fails to empower economic mobility over shorter periods of time. Historical patterns have reinforced this perception, shaping a widespread belief that meaningful economic mobility is tied to the passage of time.

Yet in today’s political and social climate, concerns about the prospects for economic mobility are mounting as inequality continues to widen. The United States now ranks among the lowest in economic mobility compared to other advanced economies. With ongoing federal cuts to essential social programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, questions persist about who is truly positioned to thrive in today’s U.S. economy.

These realities make it increasingly urgent to pursue research that investigates the conditions enabling mobility over shorter periods of time to create more effective policies. By shifting the lens from long-term structural legacies to more immediate, community-level dynamics, research on economic opportunity can identify how to encourage economic mobility within generations as well.

A recent working paper, “Changing Opportunity: Sociological Mechanisms Underlying Growing Class Gaps and Shrinking Race Gaps in Economic Mobility,” studies this potential shift in perspective to empower economic mobility. The researchers from Opportunity Insights who co-authored the paper—Raj Chetty, Will Dobbie, Benjamin Goldman, Sonya R. Porter, and Crystal S. Yan—aim to understand the causal mechanisms behind rapid changes in intergenerational economic mobility.

As it turns out, the authors find that changes in community conditions, such as employment rates within racial and economic parental peer groups, have a causal effect on children’s long-term economic outcomes. In other words, where and with whom parents and children live and interact shapes the trajectory of the next generation.

The co-authors observed a stark divergence in intergenerational economic mobility across race and class between those born in 1978 and those born in 1992. Specifically, the gap in economic mobility between low-income Black and White families narrowed, while the gap between White children from low- and high-income families widened. These trends—a shrinking race gap and a growing class gap—were seen not just in earnings, but also in other life outcomes, including marriage, mortality, and incarceration rates.

Read the full article about U.S. economic mobility by Raven Shaw at Equitable Growth.