How to Measure Upward Mobility Using Facebook Data

A new study uses Facebook data as a proxy to measure people's real-world relationships. Raj and his team find that it's the exact places that have more connections between low-income and high-income folks that have much greater rates of upward mobility. If you plop a kid from a disadvantaged background into a community with more economic connectedness, their income and adulthood will be, on average, 20% higher.