@ Huge study on reducing poverty: more cross-class friends

[Velar Fricative]

I preemptively added the @ not just because the article talks a lot about how people grow up, but because I expect lots of anecdotes in this thread. Even from a non-parenting perspective, this is fascinating. Not surprising, but nice to see a vast study like this.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/01/upshot/rich-poor-friendships.html

You can zoom in by ZIP, county, high school or college here: www.socialcapital.org/

Previously, it was clear that some neighborhoods were much better than others at removing barriers to climbing the income ladder, but it wasn’t clear why. The new analysis — the biggest of its kind — found the degree to which the rich and poor were connected explained why a neighborhood’s children did better later in life, more than any other factor.



The effect was profound. The study found that if poor children grew up in neighborhoods where 70 percent of their friends were wealthy — the typical rate of friendship for higher-income children — it would increase their future incomes by 20 percent, on average.



These cross-class friendships — what the researchers called economic connectedness — had a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability or a community’s racial composition. The people you know, the study suggests, open up opportunities, and the growing class divide in the United States closes them off.

It also shows how beneficial it is for kids from lower-income families to not merely be *around* kids from higher-income families, they have to develop some kind of friendly relationship with them. But as kids grow up and become well-off, they're separating themselves and their kids from lower-income families through where they live, go to school, do activities, etc. and thus they get more of a competitive edge even if they don't feel like that's the case because they're removing a key way for upward mobility to happen. But, can't be increasing the competition for jobs, wealth and/or power!

[Velar Fricative]

Somehow my HS is not listed but I'm fascinated by the other numbers that apply to me.

Also, I think drilling down by ZIP is more important than county if you're familiar enough with your area. I've lived and/or worked everywhere in the metro area here and I'm not surprised to see high cross-class friendships in the more affluent areas. That's because there aren't as many lower-income households in those areas, so the ones that do live there hugely benefit. But when a community is almost entirely made up of lower-income households, they're much redder on the social capital map. Around here many of those places are the historical "white flight" cities, like Newark, NJ. Sooooo it's okay as a rich person to live among a few lower-income people, but once they're are too many of them, time to run!

[mrsslocombe]

I guess I can see this in my life. I grew up in a rural PA area. My high school is listed as 62% high-income friends. Which, the area I grew up in had VERY few people with high incomes, it was mostly blue collar workers and middle class professionals like teachers, small business owners, etc. I think the % of people with college degrees in my town is under 10%. There weren't enough rich kids to have an exclusive club so there was more intermingling. Also, the town is like 90% white so I'm sure that is a major factor as well.

My husband's high school is listed as 91% high-income friends which checks out. It's your typical urban private school where there's a handful of scholarship students for diversity but everyone else is upper middle class +.

Now I live in one of the richest neighborhoods in Brooklyn and we are listed as 44% high-income friends. My co-op is diverse but everything around us is either $2M high rise condos, $8M brownstones, or public housing, the neighborhood is extremely segregated. And because of the way NYC public high schools are run, the higher income (white) kids all go to private school or the specialized public schools.

[bronxgirl]

Aug 1, 2022 10:01:38 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Somehow my HS is not listed but I'm fascinated by the other numbers that apply to me.

Also, I think drilling down by ZIP is more important than county if you're familiar enough with your area. I've lived and/or worked everywhere in the metro area here and I'm not surprised to see high cross-class friendships in the more affluent areas. That's because there aren't as many lower-income households in those areas, so the ones that do live there hugely benefit. But when a community is almost entirely made up of lower-income households, they're much redder on the social capital map. Around here many of those places are the historical "white flight" cities, like Newark, NJ. Sooooo it's okay as a rich person to live among a few lower-income people, but once they're are too many of them, time to run!

That was really interesting. Apparently the county where I currently live is the same as the county where I grew up (35%). I don't know why that surprised me, but it did. 

[Bad Dingo]

Besides the study which is interesting, I'm kind of fascinated by it being based on FB data.

"They estimated users’ incomes based on their ZIP codes, college, phone model, age and other characteristics. ... For each low-income Facebook user, the researchers determined where the person was currently living, and how many high-income friends they had."

All of the cross referencing using FB to find their high schools etc., it really shows how valuable all of your personal information is.

In my personal experience, family & friends who are POC are more likely to use nicknames or completely fake names and give a lot less personal information to FB. I wonder how that impacted the study.

[goldengirlz]

I went to a magnet high school where a large percentage of kids were low-income. Now as adults, a lot of those wealth disparities have narrowed. Many, if not most of those former classmates are very successful.

I think there are a few factors at play.

1) Networking. This one is pretty self-explanatory. So much of life is who you know.
2) Learning the secret language. I see this even as someone who grew up UMC (with parents who grew up working class.) I feel pretty comfortable around rich people — but my parents never did. I’ve always been adjacent to that world because of the schools they sent me to.
3) Having someone to guide you, even if it’s not explicit. If you’re the first of your family to go to college, you might not know all the options available to you. But if you’re surrounded by people who know how to work the system, you learn from watching them.

[Velar Fricative]

Aug 1, 2022 11:18:05 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

Besides the study which is interesting, I'm kind of fascinated by it being based on FB data.

"They estimated users’ incomes based on their ZIP codes, college, phone model, age and other characteristics. ... For each low-income Facebook user, the researchers determined where the person was currently living, and how many high-income friends they had."

All of the cross referencing using FB to find their high schools etc., it really shows how valuable all of your personal information is.

In my personal experience, family & friends who are POC are more likely to use nicknames or completely fake names and give a lot less personal information to FB. I wonder how that impacted the study.

I did catch all those disclaimers within the article plus at the bottom too. And yes, I've noticed exactly the same too re: POC friends.

[Michelle]

Very interesting article and social capital map. thanks for sharing.

[Michelle]

Aug 1, 2022 11:22:07 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I went to a magnet high school where a large percentage of kids were low-income. Now as adults, a lot of those wealth disparities have narrowed. Many, if not most of those former classmates are very successful.

I think there are a few factors at play.

1) Networking. This one is pretty self-explanatory. So much of life is who you know.
2) Learning the secret language. I see this even as someone who grew up UMC (with parents who grew up working class.) I feel pretty comfortable around rich people — but my parents never did. I’ve always been adjacent to that world because of the schools they sent me to.
3) Having someone to guide you, even if it’s not explicit. If you’re the first of your family to go to college, you might not know all the options available to you. But if you’re surrounded by people who know how to work the system, you learn from watching them.

As i grew to understand the concept of white privilege and how it applied to me as a poor white kid, first college grad, etc. these two were key privileges I realized i had that others in my family didn't. My mom got a job as an executive secretary - that opened up access to networks that were previously closed to me, and they helped her help me with college application processes.

As for learning the language - I didn't start to experience that until college. I was a scholarship kid who made friends with very rich kids. My "poverty" was pointed out from time to time either through clothing options or even some standards for holding certain utensils or protocols for fine dining to which I'd never been exposed, just giving a couple examples. But once you know or can blend with the secret language - man barriers come down quickly. It's fascinating from a cultural studies perspective and also really sad.