- Apr 2024
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www.nybooks.com www.nybooks.com
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Left Behind by [[Nancy Isenberg]]
This is of interest because Isenberg's White Trash came out in January 2016 just a five months before Vance's Hillbilly Elegy was released. As a result she didn't get to reference it in her book.
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- Sep 2022
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www.aei.org www.aei.org
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This point may not appeal as much to liberal sensibilities, but any serious conversation of this study, or upward mobility generally, has to begin with the state of the two-parent family in America.
This seems to fall back on the trope of "two-parent families are the natural state" when in reality, since the late 80's one's chances are better with a two-parent, two-income family which provides far greater stability. His argument here is conflating multiple complex items, an issue he takes with Gladwell himself.
Why not peel apart this two-parent claim the same way? I suspect he may be nodding to the single-earner two-parent mode, but how prevalent is this in American culture now? What other pieces also underpin this? And is it different by state, by race, by culture, etc.
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Chetty’s paper reports that “the strongest and most robust predictor [of the level of upward mobility in an area] is the fraction of children with single parents.”
Cross reference with: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/raj-chettys-american-dream/592804
I should read more of Chetty's primary material here.
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