Page 31 - ENGLISH_FullText

5. Intergenerational

Mobility and Poverty

5.1 A Global Phenomenon

The rapidly rising number of divorces presented in the previous
chapter is suggestive of some very real and alarming concerns about how
poverty is being formed in Hong Kong and how it may affect social mobility
and cause dynamic poverty across generations. Dynamic poverty differs
from static poverty in that it concerns poverty across generations due to
the lack of upward social mobility.

Low intergenerational mobility is evident across the globe. In
Charles Murray’s book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,
he showed that between 1960 and 1980, the divorce rate of working-class
Whites rose from about 5% to about 15%. The trend continued and by 2010
had increased to 35%.

The well-educated saw a parallel rise between 1960 and 1980: their
divorce rate rose from about 1% to about 7.5%, and was flat from 1980 to 2010.
The difference between the two groups is reflected in the rates for children
growing up in broken homes: a steady increase for the working class, a low
plateau for the well-educated. Murray revealed that the percentage of well-
educated people in happy marriages has sharply rebounded, while the
percentage of working class in happy marriages has crashed.

While his findings are akin to the previous chapter of the Report,
what is powerful about his thesis is the unusually high degree of family
breakdowns associated with the origin and intergenerational transmission
of poverty among unskilled low-income families. Their children suffer as a
consequence and end up in poverty themselves.

By contrast college graduates do well not only economically but
also in their family life. Their children have nurturing and secure childhoods,
and lead productive, successful, and fulfilling lives when they grow up.
Rising intergenerational inequality is produced when the poor have broken
families and stay in bad neighbourhoods, while the rich have intact families
and live in good neighbourhoods.

Striking a similar chord, political scientist from Harvard University
Robert Putman reinforced Murray’s thesis with his book Our Kids: The
American Dream in Crisis. He showed that in the United States, children

31