Well-off families create 'glass floor' to ensure children's success, says study

[n2doc]

Well-off parents create a “glass floor” for their less academically inclined children ensuring they “hoard the best opportunities” over poorer peers, a study has suggested.

Children from wealthier families but with less academic ability are 35% more likely to become high earners than their more gifted counterparts from poor families, according to findings from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.

The study, entitled “Downward mobility, opportunity hoarding and the ‘glass’ floor”, looked at the lives of 17,000 people born in Britain in the same week in 1970.

The potential for success can even date as far back as the social background of the child’s grandfather, the report suggested.

Factors influencing a child’s success later in life included the level of their parents’ education, the type of secondary school they attend and the highest qualification they achieved, the report said.

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/26/well-off-families-create-glass-floor-to-ensure-childrens-success-says-study?CMP=twt_gu

[Orrex]

1. As evidenced by Bush v Gore, for instance.

[Johnyawl]

2. This is news?

Who in this world hasn't known that this has been going on in all cultures throughout history?

"It's not what you know, it's who you know."

[Liberal_in_LA]

15. cultural capital - the passing down of opportunity to one's offspring

[CoffeeCat]

3. Isn't George W Bush the poster child for this phenomena?

"W" was a mediocre student and a feckless screw up. Look how high he rose. He sure didn't get there because of hard work.

He got there due to his family connections.

This is a story as old as time. I see this in the suburbs, as well. Kids with well-connected parents definitely have major advantages. It's the old adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" come to life.

Parents with advanced degrees generally have nice white-collar jobs. These same parents can leverage their children for available scholarships, internships and jobs. Once in those positions, they are most likely given more leeway, as well.

It's sad, but true.

[XemaSab]

5. Rich teenagers don't have to work, clean the house, or care for younger siblings

That frees up a lot of time for enrichment activities.

[hollysmom]

7. I used to think that Jebbie was W's smarter brother, but I really have to question that now, seems

like the Bush tree had a lot of weak limbs.

[TexasBushwhacker]

8. Nope, Jeb was a lackluster student K-12

He didn't make decent grades until he went to UT.

The most prestigious and rigorous private school in Houston is the St. John's School. Kinkaid is number two. Naturally, the George and Barbara wanted their shrubs to go to St John's, but they wouldn't accept them. So they had to settle for Kinkaid. Barbara was so grateful that they took her academically challenged kids that she was a volunteer at there for decades.

[hifiguy]

11. Dry rot is more like it.

[hifiguy]

10. Nearly 30 years ago I was engaged in my job hunt

while a second-year student at Harvard Law.

I was a high-school dropout, went on to graduate summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the U of Minnesota in four years and was accepted by nine of the ten law schools I applied to. Yale was the one I didn't get into, but I made the cut at Penn, Cornell, Columbia and several other top-tier schools.

Inevitably, one of the first three questions I asked when interviewing in my hometown was "Where did you go to high school?" Translation: Do your parents have money/connections? The name of the working-class 'burb in which I grew up was the "wrongest" possible answer and brought a couple of interviews to a dead stop.

Ever since I have said "They'd rather have a rich kid who went to Hamline (a St Paul school) than a poor kid that went to Harvard."

[Cleita]

4. Having been forced to work with the spoiled brat son of many a wealthy CEO,

I know how the system works. If, while on the golf course, they can procure a prestigious, "entry level" job for their son or nephew in another company, they will. It doesn't smell like nepotism that way. But many are even too undesirable for a favor owed or trade with another company, so they are often given charge of a department or branch store somewhere out in the boonies in dad's organization where they can't do much harm. Unfortunately, the rank and file employee has to put up with them and while they are occupying that job, no one who actually deserves it will be promoted.

[leveymg]

6. It's even more granular than that. Legacy Ivy League admissions are pure nepotism.

A BA degree from Harvard or Stanford almost guarantees being hired for the most plum jobs at the highest executive levels.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. One of the most egregious examples of disconnect that I have ever witnessed came

from a power mom who said she was thinking of allowing her A student child to write the college applicant essays for her less motivated child. This was a family that was well in the 1%. Her follow-up comment: "Why not? I don't have a race card to play."

[aikoaiko]

12. Interesting this article is about middle-class "well-off" families and not just the rich.

[LittleBlue]

13. Any parent does

Only a bad parent wouldn't do anything they could to ensure their child's success.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. yes. well documented pattern. even progressive rich parents

Get their kids into the special advanced tracks at school. Segregate integrated schools with school within schools.