Gregory Clark on Social Mobility, Migration, and Assortative Mating (Live at Mercatus)
Feb 19, 2025
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Gregory Clark, an economic historian and professor, unpacks the puzzling nature of social mobility. He reveals that our life's trajectory is influenced by historical factors more than we think, with relative mobility rates unchanged for 300 years. The conversation dives into why England became a meritocracy and how assortative mating perpetuates inequality. Clark also discusses India's delayed industrialization, the complexities of immigration, and the role of family structure in shaping economic outcomes, raising profound questions about genetics and social status.
Social mobility has remained relatively static for centuries, suggesting that individuals' economic positions largely depend on their inherited backgrounds rather than personal efforts.
Geographic mobility can improve living standards, yet it often fails to alter individuals' relative social standings, revealing persistent societal hierarchies.
Assortative mating patterns exacerbate inequality by promoting socio-economic homogeneity within couples, influencing broader economic growth and social dynamics.
Deep dives
Social Mobility Across Time
Social mobility in societies like England and Denmark appears to be more static than commonly believed, maintaining similar rates from medieval times to the present. The perspective on mobility often focuses on relative rankings, suggesting that individuals' social positions depend heavily on their parents' status without much enhancement in upward mobility. Greg Clark argues that despite increased living standards, the ability to shift one's relative economic position remains largely unchanged. This implies a persistent connection to one's background, making it difficult for individuals to transcend their inherited social status.
The Role of Geographic Mobility
Geographic mobility can significantly influence social mobility, with evidence suggesting physical relocation enables individuals to improve their living standards dramatically. This mobility is exemplified by immigrant success stories, such as families from India achieving high median incomes in the U.S. despite lower backgrounds in their home country. However, it is noted that even when people move, their relative social positions often persist, indicating that the systems in place still uphold some level of hierarchy across societies. Thus, while movement can enhance material welfare, it does not necessarily break the bonds of inherited status.
Assortative Mating and Inequality
Assortative mating, where individuals tend to marry those of similar social status, contributes to widening distributions of ability and can affect economic growth. Clark's research indicates that this phenomenon in England is significant, with individuals historically matching based on social status rather than purely on personal attributes like attractiveness or wealth. This consistent trend could lead to increased inequality in society, as mating patterns prioritize maintaining or enhancing social capital over bridging economic divides. Consequently, the implications of assortative mating are complex, impacting not only individual couples but society as a whole.
The Impact of Culture and Genetics
Greg Clark posits that societal outcomes are significantly influenced by genetics and randomness, suggesting we have lived in a meritocratic society for centuries. Despite this, the mechanisms via which genetic attributes influence social status remain a subject of debate, particularly the contrasting findings between twin studies and genome-wide association studies. The research indicates that while genetic factors are influential, the capacity to measure these impacts accurately over time poses a challenge. This raises questions about whether cultural differences or behaviors can outweigh genetic predispositions in determining success.
Consequences of Historical Context in Mobility
The discussion on mobility outcomes encompasses the notion that historical socio-economic structures play a crucial role in shaping contemporary social outcomes. In the context of British and wider European history, the migration patterns, societal norms, and economic structures have created a landscape where the upper classes in society tend to perpetuate their status through selective breeding and marriage patterns. The current frameworks of mobility reflect legacies from past injustices and systemic constraints, emphasizing the difficulty of redefining mobility in the modern context. Despite policy initiatives aimed at equality, the historical weight of such structures continues to affect social progress.
How much of your life’s trajectory was set in motion centuries ago? Gregory Clark has spent decades studying social mobility, and his findings suggest that where you land in society is far more predictable than we like to think. Using historical data, surname analysis, and migration patterns, Clark argues that social mobility rates have remained largely unchanged for 300 years—even across radically different political and economic systems.
He and Tyler discuss why we should care about relative mobility vs growing the size of the pie, how physical mobility does and doesn’t matter, why England was a meritocracy by 1700, how assortative mating affects economic and social progress, why India industrialized so late, a new potential explanation why Britain’s economic performance has been lukewarm since WWI, Malthusian societies then and now, whether a “hereditarian” stance favors large-scale redistribution or a free-market approach, the dynamics of assimilation within Europe and the role of negative selection in certain migrations, the challenge of accurately measuring living standards, the neighborhood-versus-family debate over what drives mobility, whether we need datasets larger than humanity itself to decode the genetics of social outcomes, and much more.
