Economics
The Interlinkages Between Family Structure and Social Mobility Pathways
Quick fact
Studies consistently show that children raised in single-parent families are about twice as likely to remain in the bottom income quintile as adults compared to children from continuously married two-parent families, even after controlling for parental education and income.
Why this is interesting
We often think of social mobility as a story of individual ambition, but your family's structure may have quietly set the stage for your climb before you ever started. Why do children from different family constellations so often end up on different economic paths?