ABSTRACT

This chapter shows that the traditional American optimism about opportunity for economic advancement is alive and quite well. The percentage distributions of responses to questions concerning the efficacy of various routes to upward mobility show that Americans do attach special significance to education as a route to economic advancement. The average earnings for blacks and women full-time workers are substantially lower than that of white males. Since the tendency of younger people to believe that opportunity is less prevalent and to have a less optimistic assessment of the efficacy of education than older people persists when the effect of socioeconomic status is controlled, earlier inference about trends concerning these beliefs is strengthened. Responses to a question concerning perceived improvement in one's standard of living relative to one's parents indicate that roughly one-half of the American public evaluates their current standard of living as much better than their parents, and another 30% see it as better.