IIRC it was the book The Meritocracy Trap that detailed the change from past generations, but I don’t know the numbers or underlying sources off the top of my head
Thanks for bringing up the source; if you do end up finding the data I'd love to see it. It's also fascinating to think about the relationship between social changes like this one and some of the economic/political drivers of inequality (less progressive taxation/inegalitarian investments in education/globalization). I suspect that the rise of tertiary education over the past 40-50 years which has further stratified educational attainment along class lines may be a relevant factor.
>I suspect that the rise of tertiary education over the past 40-50 years which has further stratified educational attainment along class lines may be a relevant factor.
This was a central point to the aforementioned book. The gist being elites invest in education, skill investment, and long hours that leads to more money that they can use to invest in more education and skill development in their children to repeat the cycle. The irony being that, while education and skill development work to gain material success, the long hours required to stay at the top of the competitive heap also makes the meritocratic winners miserable.
I guess it depends on how you define winner. If you measure winning primarily by social status or money, sure. But one of the main points of the book is to illustrating the costs of all that "winning".
There was one quote from the book of a high-achieving mother who, due to long hours, only got to spend 20 minutes a day with her child but "wouldn't give up those 20 minutes for the world."
If you're someone who values close human relationships, I don't know if I'd call that "winning".
I think this is a valid point in the United States (to a certain extent, of course: I don't think "working too hard and not seeing your kids enough" is really comparable to "living paycheck to paycheck", although I understand that they're directionally the same). Does the author address other countries, though? The logic of meritocracy has been used to justify huge increases in inequality in countries where people work significantly less hard (e.g. France, India, Sweden).
