People who will have children ("eventual parents" for the purpose of this comment) are healthier, smarter and wealthier than people who will never have children. If the question is whether things have gotten harder for the average person, it is misleading to compare a group consisting only of eventual parents with a group composed of both eventual parents and non-parents. A better comparison would be 30-years-olds of today versus 30-year-olds (whether the 30-year-old has or goes on to have children or not) of the past.
ADDED LATER. A careful study or newspaper article on the question of whether people have it harder or easier than they did 30 years ago or 45 years ago would try to avoid comparing populations that a reasonable person would expect to differ for reason other than things in the country getting harder or easier. Whether or not my sentence above containing the phrase "are healthier, smarter and wealthier" is true, clearly one might reasonably expect systemic differences between people who have children or will go on to have children and people who do not.
Even if the "nonparent" group were on average more intelligent than the "parent" group, that would also be a reason to avoid omitting the "nonparents" from the older cohort in the study.
The fact that the OP does not even try to avoid those systemic differences suggests that either the author is not sufficiently skilled at statistics to be writing about what he or she is writing about or someone is trying to argue for some conclusion he or she is attached to, e.g., "it is awful how hard things have gotten in this country for the average person" or the article author is making the headline more dramatic than the situation actually is in order to get more clicks.
Can you cite a source for that? While there will be cases where that is true, it may also be that those without children have higher willpower (no oopses), for example.
Further, not all of the children's parents were younger than 30 when they had their child. Being childfree at 30 does not mean childfree at 40.
You said "A better comparison would be 30-years-olds of today versus 30-year-olds (whether the 30-year-old has or goes on to have children or not) of the past."
This is exactly what they did and what the data shows. 50% of kids today make more than their parents, vs 90% of kids 60 years ago made more than their parents.
I feel like we're missing each other points though...
It doesn't account for obvious confounding factors to prove it's conclusions of stagflation. Comparing parents to children has a pile of variables during this time frame that the article doesn't examine in the slightest.
For example it doesn't mention birth control once.
1) You have a fine point that it doesn't make sense to compare the percentage of (people who might have children + people who might not have children) to (30-year-olds of a previous era who went on to have children). In isolation, an absolute number like "50%" only has meaning if we assume that there are no significant differences in earnings between parents and non-parents.
2) Others are pointing out that the message of the graph is not the absolute percentage, but the trend line. The graph purports to show that the chance of greater earnings of (30-year-old maybe parents) vs (their own definitely parents at age 30) has decreased relatively linearly from 90% to 50% over the last 50 years. This could be explained by a demographic change in who has children over the same time frame, but it's not absurd to assume that the dynamics have remained constant even though the differences between the groups are unknown.
3) I'd be wondering more about how they accounted for inflation, since the manner in which this is done would drastically effect the results. I think the question essentially boils down to "at a given decile of earnings, does the average person today have a better life than the average person 30 years ago?" I don't know how one could answer this rigorously.
Everyone as a parent, but not everyone has a child. In both instances they are comparing "parents" a subset of the population. To "people" the total population.
Economic pressures can affect the decision to have children. Especially once birth control became widespread.
> People who will have children ("eventual parents" for the purpose of this comment) are healthier, smarter and wealthier than people who will never have children.
I can't read the article, as it's behind a paywall. Does the article say that? If not, where does that claim come from?
I agree. I've seen a lot of people who have no intention of "settling down" or "having kids" become surprised when their peers who do exactly that become more "successful" (earn more money, move up in job position, etc.). I think making the decision to have kids instills a bit of discipline to get something stable in life.
vasaulys says> "I think making the decision to have kids instills a bit of discipline to get something stable in life."
I think this is not necessarily so. However...
I've seen a number of persons who have children and who believe your statement (or similar statements, e.g., "Having kids makes you more responsible", etc.) to be true.
And so they promote/hire a younger person who has chosen to pursue a family path rather than a more qualified person with a superior skill set.
I completely disagree with your premise. Can you cite any evidence of the claim that parents are "healthier, smarter and wealthier" than people who will not have children? In my experience the decision to have children is often not even a decision at all and is just something that happens.
The question is also not "whether things have gotten harder for the average person". The article clearly states:
"Economists and sociologists from Stanford, Harvard and the University of California set out to measure the strength of what they define as the American Dream[1], and found the dream was fading. They identified the income of 30-year-olds starting in 1970, using tax and census data, and compared it with the earnings of their parents when they were about the same age."
The question is the viability of an American dream based on opportunity for children exceeding that of their parents.
From the article:
“My parents thought that one thing about America is that their kids could do better than they were able to do,” said Raj Chetty, a prominent Stanford University economist who emigrated from India at age 9 and is part of the research team. “That was important in my parents’ decision to come here.”
ADDED LATER. A careful study or newspaper article on the question of whether people have it harder or easier than they did 30 years ago or 45 years ago would try to avoid comparing populations that a reasonable person would expect to differ for reason other than things in the country getting harder or easier. Whether or not my sentence above containing the phrase "are healthier, smarter and wealthier" is true, clearly one might reasonably expect systemic differences between people who have children or will go on to have children and people who do not.
Even if the "nonparent" group were on average more intelligent than the "parent" group, that would also be a reason to avoid omitting the "nonparents" from the older cohort in the study.
The fact that the OP does not even try to avoid those systemic differences suggests that either the author is not sufficiently skilled at statistics to be writing about what he or she is writing about or someone is trying to argue for some conclusion he or she is attached to, e.g., "it is awful how hard things have gotten in this country for the average person" or the article author is making the headline more dramatic than the situation actually is in order to get more clicks.
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