A long-standing consensus among sociologists holds that educational attainment has an equalizing effect that increases mobility by moderating other avenues of intergenerational status transmission. This study argues that the evidence supporting this consensus may be distorted by two problems: measurement error in parents’ socioeconomic standing and the educational system’s tendency to progressively select people predisposed for mobility rather than to actually affect mobility. Analyses of family income mobility that address both of these problems in three longitudinal surveys converge on new findings. Intergenerational mobility is significantly lower among high school dropouts than among others, but there are no significant differences in mobility across higher education levels. This is consistent with compensatory advantage processes among the least educated in which individuals from advantaged backgrounds use family-based resources to compensate for their lack of human capital.

社会学家之间的长期共识认为，受教育程度具有均衡作用，可以通过调节代际状态传递的其他途径来提高流动性。这项研究认为，支持这一共识的证据可能会受到两个问题的扭曲：父母社会经济地位的衡量误差和教育系统倾向于逐步选择容易产生流动性而不是实际影响流动性的人的倾向。在三个纵向调查中，解决了这两个问题的家庭收入流动性分析汇集了新的发现。高中辍学学生之间的代际流动性显着低于其他人，但高等教育水平之间的流动性没有显着差异。