The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

A fascinating work which exposes a lot of contemporary myths about social mobility. If you are interested in family history and have worked out your genealogy it provides a fresh perspective too. The more I think about this topic, the more it makes me realise that a society of perfect social mobility would be absolutely hellish!

Social mobility seems to be the hot topic today with Piketty's book being the center focus currently. Gregory Clark has a totally different approach to the subject and its analysis is insightful and unique. Gregory Clark approaches the topic of social mobility by looking at rare last names and analysing their relative frequency in high social status professions like law and medicine and uses the frequency data to see how much social mobility is implied by the relative frequency over long periods of time. The methodology is clever and the results are surprising. The book is split into three parts. The first is titled Social Mobility by Time and Place. As the section titled alludes, this section is about social mobility accross a variety of places that are assumed to have different mobility as well as different times in which most are taught that social mobility was very different from today. Social mobility via surname alaysis is undertaken in Sweden, the US, the UK and medieval England. The author then provides the framework for which the rest of the book is benchmarked against. In particular the author provides a framework for looking at social mobility, rather than typical analysis of income mobility. The author then looks at various social models and does similar surname analysis. The author looks at India and the caste system and the persistence of surnames in India among different professions and different regions and religious subgroups. India is considered a society with extreme social stratification due to its caste system and the evidence supports the lack of mobility. The author then looks at China and Taiwan. China is always a fascinating example due to the total levelling of society through Mao's revolutionary regime and Taiwan was a country for which the Nationalists only moved to post the Communist victory. The authors also discuss Korean and Japan, societies which are percieved to be very level among the citizens and also Chile a society that is very divided, like most of South America. The author also discusses Gypsy populations in the UK. The author discusses how all the various regimes can be embedded within his framework. The author then concludes with his final section The Good Society. This summarizes the material and the author discusses social policy as a function of his results. The author concludes that social mobility is biologically limited and should not be the focus of policy makers; he focuses on some factors which can be partially adressed by policy like whether groups are endogamous our exogamous. But for the most part the author lays out the repurcussions of his results which support the fact that a surname analysis is evidence of social darwinism being true. The Son Also Rises is definitely an interesting take on social mobility and the difference between social mobility and income generational income distributional shifts. In particular that income might have a distribution implied by gini coefficients but that social mobility is in effect much more mean reverting that social mobility is much more constrained than gini coefficients imply. The author shows throughout the book whether one is focused on pre industrial revolution or inclusive modern Sweden the correlation within higher social standing and lower social standing families on a multi generation basis for profession is in the .7-.85 range. The author's data set is focused on rare names analysis and as a result is a partial analysis of society and one has to assume that rare names are a representative subset of society at large (which seems a reasonable assumption). Perhaps the next step is an analysis based on mitochondrial DNA (sounds like Gattica). The author does at the end also look at families with adopted children and studies the explanatory power of adopted parents influence, which shows they have influence over educational attainment but less on social mobility. This is an interesting work and will be contentious, it is hard to read this and not think there is an element of truth to the underlying principles but there are many assumptions in this and the method of analysis is not an unbiased statistical one as it has to be based off of particular small subsets of society and their dispersion, or lack of over time, rather than larger pockets of society (like the last name Smith for example).

Michael Clemens observed that in two books, Greg Clark has managed to remind us of a writer from Michigan: First, "A farewell to alms," and now "The son also rises." Imagination runs wild in search of, "What next?" The message is straightforward if not simple: Heredity matters. There are more Pepys at Oxford in the 20th century than chance alone could have predicted. There are thirteen surnames of elite standing in north Zhejiang and south Jiangsu that have managed to survive well into the Peoples Republic of China. Genes matter and changing the standing of families has taken generations. Piketty says we are headed back to a Gilded Age; Clark's studies support that view with vigor. Too bad his excellent book appeared without the recognition accorded "Capital in the 21st century."

The social sciences and humanities are in trouble. They are largely predicated on the erroneous idea that social forces divorced from genetic endowments are responsible for producing the broad social patterns we observe. Professor Clark has been challenging this view for years, and devising hypotheses that will prove to have much better explanatory and predictive power as the science of genetics matures. Due to the technicality of its subject, the chapters of The Son Also Rises are difficult to read. But the chapter introductions and conclusions are a gold mine of insight. Among the many things you'll learn from Clark's book is the importance of distinguishing the social phenotype (the sum of one's observed characteristics) from the social genotype (one's underlying genetic characteristics). According to Clark, in order "to discover the likely underlying social genotype of your potential partner, you need to observe not just their characteristics but also the characteristics of all their relatives... This social *genotype*, rather than the observed social *phenotype*, is what your children will inherit” (p. 283). To take a simple example, “Suppose you are faced with a choice of two marriage partners, both of whom have a high-status phenotype. They are both graduates from elite colleges and have PhD’s in philosophy, for example, or both are board certified in rhinoplasty. But one partner is of Ashkenazi Jewish background [group average IQ of 110] and the other of New France descent [group average IQ of 85]. Then the predicted status of your children will be higher if you select the Jewish partner” (p. 285). Eventually, the kind of sophisticated behavioral genetics in Clark's work will be more widely incorporated into the social sciences -- at least if they're going to successfully predict and explain social phenomena in a deeper way than they currently do. This book will represent one of the first matches that starts the conflagration that will revolutionize social science.

This is the truth of how the world works. If your daddy and your granddaddy were great you are set for life. If you didn't pick the right parents, well, good luck in your next life.

This book falls into two main parts -- one discussing ground-breaking research in social mobility, and the other drawing conclusions from that research. The research itself is fascinating. The author's interpretation of that research, however, seems to me more open to question that he suggests. My basic problem is that he attributes low long term rates of social mobility to genetics. It seems to me, however, that inherited wealth and inherited status explain a great deal of the social immobility his data reveal. Piketty, it seems to me, may have more to offer in this regard that Darwin. Whether or not you agree entirely with his conclusions, however, this is a thought provoking and valuable contribution to the discussion of social mobility. As both economic inequality and our knowledge of genetics increase, the "received version" of social mobility as a result of social factors rather than genetics is being questioned more and more. This is a discussion with political implications (some very alarming), but it is a discussion that can't be avoided. "The Son Also Rises" makes an important contribution, which -- I hope -- will spur more work. As other reviewers report, Clark's research is based on the frequency with which unusual surnames appear (or don't appear) in various high-status cohorts over time. (He uses unusual surnames to make the statistical task possible). An early example, to illustrate, is the British surname "Pepys". Based on its (low) frequency in the British population, two or three Pepyses would have attended England's elite universities over the past 500 years. Instead, at least 58 have done so -- most recently just 20 years ago. Clark starts off with English and Swedish data particularly intently, because of the high quality of the data, and the long time spans over which it is available. He then looks closely at US data, and then at data from many other countries. Two big surprises emerge from this data (along with a whole lot of minor surprises). First, social mobility as analysed by Clark is much lower than the standard two-generation analysis, which correlates the income of grown children with that of their parents. That measure shows that 30-40% of current status (as measured by income) in the industrialized countries reflects parents' income. Clark's data, however, shows 70% ratios. That's a massive difference over the long run, suggesting that it takes 10 to 15 generations for high status to revert to the norm, rather than 3-4 generations. Second, Clark's data show a remarkable consistency from country to country, and from time period to time period. His data show no more mobility in Sweden than in other countries, despite more than half a century of the welfare state. And his data for medieval Britain show the same degree of mobility as in current day Britain. At this point I hit a problem in evaluating "The Son Also Rises", which is my own lack of statistical sophistication. I don't fully understand how Clark's data can be reconciled with two-generation data, and can't follow his statistical explanations of this. Also, I wonder if the analysis for England and Sweden can be extended to the US, where time series are in many cases much shorter, and very different. I hope that these points will be elucidated for a general reader in later work. Whatever uncertainties one may have about the ordering of the data, however, the data itself is unquestionably very important. When Clark moves on to his primary conclusion -- that low social mobility over time reflects differences in genetic endowments -- seems to me far less compelling than his data. He posits a quality of "underlying social competence" which determines social status, and fades only slowly over time. He also discusses this in terms of various U.S. ethnic groups, where I cannot follow his argument that differences in social status depend primarily on genetics. I can't follow it because (once again) his statistical analysis gets beyond my competence. But I also can't follow it because the time span of groups in the US is way shorter than in Europe, and discrimination still an important factor. Also, I do not follow his argument as to why cultural self-perpetuation does not account for a lot of the persistent high status of some families -- if Daddy and Granddaddy went to Yale, Sonny is far more likely to go to Yale than Joe Blow, no matter how high or low Sonny's underlying social competence. In any event, even though I remain unconvinced on many points and in active disagreement on a few, I still found this book very valuable. I look forward to more research based on the use of surnames -- a very major contribution. Why then only four stars? Because I wish that more effort had been made to make the statistical analysis more meaningful to a general reader.

Very interesting analysis. However, Clark's hypothesis about slower social mobility than conventional measures show is restricted to the methodology he cleverly employs. That methodology excludes a variety of ways that people move about within a stratification system. Still, his meticulous and overwhelming data contribute to our understanding of the stability of social status systems and their resistance to change. The book is a little repetitious. The technical nature of his prose requires re-statements ever so often, so I think the reader needs to be prepared a fairly slow read. Worth it, though.

It is a fascinating book. I wish I would read it 30 years ago. However, it’s strong opinion is also very misleading if you cannot read it objectively and think in a more dynamic context.

In 'The Son Also Rises', Gregory Clark analyzes long term social mobility across hundreds of years and in several countries. His original research exploits the fact that one thing people inherit is their surname. Combined with data of various measures of social status (wealth, occupational status, educational attainment, etc), Clark and his colleagues are able to track how much of social status is inherited. His findings are quite remarkable. At the group level, underlying social status seems to be inherited very strongly over the long run. Not only that, but there is very little difference in the degree of social mobility across societies and across periods of time. Apparantly, things such as welfare, free schooling, and similar policies have had surprisingly little effect on the degree of social mobility. Very few would have predicted that, but it's believable exactly because he so successfully demonstrates how robust the findings are with substantial evidence. What are the mechanisms that drive this social immobility? Do people inherit genes that predispose them to social success? Do parents pass on culture, opportunity and wealth to their children? Nature or nurture? This is not the main topic of the book; the main topic is the fact of social inheritance, which exists for some reason or another. But he does spend some time on this question. He makes no firm conclusion, however he notices that a hard look on the evidence is surprisingly consistent with a model of genetic inheritance, and surprisingly difficult to explain with a pure-nurture model. The book makes you think, and it gives a completely new perspective on many important social issues. While the topic of social mobility is a controversial political topic, the book is fairly apolitical -- which I enjoy. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in social mobility, economics or sociology. Clark and his colleagues have done amazing research (it appears to have been an enormous task), and he presents it well.

Very good read.

How much social mobility exists in modern and medieval societies? Is there such a thing as a self-made man? How does varying forms of government, education and social safety nets change the fates of the poor and the rich? Gregory Clark offers incredible insight into these questions by evaluating surname frequency for rare surnames across many different time periods and places. Clark's conclusions? 1. There appears to be a fairly stable rate of social mobility across a vast array of time periods, cultures and even measures of social status. 2. This rate is much lower than previous estimates, with regression to the mean occurring over several generations or more instead of a few, as has been predicted using other methodologies. 3. Biological inheritance of successful traits is a strong theory for explaining the observed results, such as decreased social mobility in groups which prohibit or discourage out-group marriage. Thinkers on both the right and the left will have their assumptions challenged as Clark paints a picture that questions the idea that we truly deserve our successes or failures, while also questioning the role that government intervention can fundamentally alter that premise.

Most books have to choose between demonstrating an argument and having a point. Authors tend to get either so much in love with their idea that they think it useless to even defend it or so absorbed by their demonstration that they forget to make their idea explicite. It is not the case here. Greg Clark has written a brilliant essay, he presents a fantastically appealing interpretation of the world we live in and he defends it with immense talent. One of the best books of our times, no doubts, after that Piketty will feel like a tedious accountant. His point is simple: people inherit much more than they make their own. And nothing appears to change that, no policy, no external event, no major period of growth. Stubbornly rich families stay rich and the poor stay poor. To demonstrate his point Clark uses the prevalence of family names in the different classes of society. Simple, elegant and (relatively) easy to replicate, the mark of a truly great mind. So many myths fall crumbling in this book that the world truly is divided between those that have read it and those that did not. No, our modern societies are not more meritocratic than 14th-century England, no, you are not more likely to become part of the elite in social-democrat Sweden than in liberal America, no, there are not such huge differences between Western and Oriental civilizations and yes there are bits of our societies that are best explained by genetic inheritance. Buy it, read it and spread it around you. This book is made of pure intelligence.

Hundreds of papers and books have been written, in which the authors are trying to prove by data on social mobility that human society is on the march to greater social equality. Most of these authors are not aware that their results are a function of their scaling of inequality. In order to measure social mobility you have to scale wealth, overall income, years of education, taxable income, social status or other appropriate variables none of which remained constant in the course of history. Because of random effects and imperfect scaling all these studies tend to overestimate intergenerational mobility. Already some researchers, who tried to scale recent and historical professions, jobs and social status according to underlying general intelligence to be successful, concluded that movements on the social ladder had changed little over the past centuries. This was substantiated by two books using samples of representative genealogical data covering several generations: La societe francaise au XIXe siecle: Tradition, transition, transformations (French Edition) and: Bevoelkerung Und Soziale Mobilitaet in Sachsen 1550-1880 (German Edition) . To measure social mobility in quite different countries and across centuries, Clark invented a novel technique: Tracking the frequency of surnames. Needed for such an approach are always data on the frequency of surnames in the general population and in the selected sample in the past and in the present. In a number of countries Clark and his coworkers were able to overcome these difficulties and to find or generate the databases necessary. The originality of this research deserves high praise. However, to use surnames in such a way is not as new as Clark believes. About 1940 Karl Valentin Müller used frequencies of surnames of Czech and German origin to investigate their contribution to the upper stratum of cities in Bohemia. - Crow, J. F. and A. P. Mange published: Measurement of inbreeding from the frequency of marriages between persons of the same surname. Eugenics Quarterly 12 (1965) 199-203. Crow and Mange founded with this seminal paper a new branch of population genetics. Surnames can be understood as alleles of one genetic locus, and surname distribution and evolution can be analyzed by the theory of neutral mutations in finite populations. One may describe the genetic structure of a human population in terms of the inbreeding within its subpopulations and the extent of the sharing of genes among them. In the following decades, instead using marriage data, surname frequencies were also extracted from directories or census data. By applying these methods, the application of surname genetics was extended to measure genetic distance and historical changes within subpopulations and social strata, see, for example: Inbreeding and genetic distance between hierarchically structured populations measured by surname frequencies. Mankind Quarterly 21 (1980). And for an even wider outlook see: Familiennamenhäufigkeiten in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart als Ausgangspunkt für interdisziplinäre Forschungen von Linguisten, Historikern, Soziologen, Geographen und Humangenetikern. Namenkundliche Informationen 31 (1977) 27-32. However, 30 years ago, the databases for such an empirical approach were still lacking. Outgoing from the medieval practice of giving surnames based on ones profession Günther Bäumler suggested a genetic-social theory of assortative distribution of traits of body build such as height, weight, and stature in a population of men called `Smith' (German: Schmied) and`Tailor' (German: Schneider). From this the hypothesis was deduced that among the top ranking athletes of the `heavy weight' branches of athletics, which require body strength and body height, there are relatively more persons that go by the name of Schmied than in the `light weight' branches of athletics, where more persons go by the name of Schneider. The hypothesis was empirically supported. See: Psychology Science 45 (2003) 254-262. In the modern world we have a general negative relationship between the number of surviving children and the social status of their parents, in sharp contrast to the preindustrial world, where more children of the rich survive. Oded Galor and Moav Omer in their paper "Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth" (2002) came to the conclusion that before 1850 the upper and medium stratum of society must have been more surviving children than the poor. Indeed, as a byproduct of his research with rare surnames Clark confirms that this turning point in differential fertility was in England already about 1850 (in Germany three or four decades later). Despite Clarkes conclusion that the most probable variable underlying social status and hence social mobility is the inheritance of general cognitive ability he dares not to cite the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations , supporting in such a way his argument on a global scale. On some pages Clark seems to foster the belief that regression to the mean is a force equalizing any society in the long run. On other pages he is stating clearly that at the same time the random counterforce of segregation of genes is always creating new inequality in each new generation. Genetically pure lineages regress only to the mean of the line and not to the mean of the overall population. It is possible not only to study the decay of a social upper stratum by surname frequencies, but also its rise and creation in the course of some generations. In 1869 Francis Galton was the first to replace mere speculation on the inheritance of talent with statistical data. 100 highly gifted and very successful men had 26 fathers, 47 brothers, 60 sons. 14 grandfathers, 16 uncles, 23 nephews, 14 grandsons, 5 uncles of parents and 16 first cousins with similar giftedness and accomplishments. Astounding similar frequencies were found in other studies in different countries. One can be sure that Clark will find followers studying the distribution and frequencies of French, Dutch, German and other surnames in the respective countries.