The interaction between families, labor markets, and public policies all structure
a child’s opportunities and determine the extent to which adult earnings are
related to family background—but they do so in different ways across national
contexts. Both cross-country comparisons and the underlying trends suggest
that these drivers are all configured to most likely lower, or in the least not
raise, the degree of intergenerational earnings mobility for the next generation
of Americans coming of age in a more polarized labor market. This trend will
likely continue unless there are changes in public policy that promote the human
capital of children in a way that offers relatively greater benefits to the
relatively disadvantaged. At the same time, the substantial rise in the income
shares of the top 1 percent, their access to sources of high-quality human capital
investment for their children, and the intergenerational transmission of employers
and wealth implies a much higher rate of transmission of economic advantage
at the very top, in a way that many will perceive as evidence of inequality in
opportunity.