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The Civil Rights Project Proyecto Derechos Civiles
Research report
Demographic Studies
California’s Geography of Opportunity: Intergenerational Mobility in the Golden State
David Mickey-Pabello

Executive Summary

In anticipation of the next twenty-five years of civil rights policy in California, this work investigates social mobility in the Golden State between the last two generations to gain insight into which groups could be best served by civil rights policy interventions (the first aim of the paper). This study used a publicly accessible database created by Opportunity Insights which employed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service (Chetty, Hendren, Kline, & Saez, 2014; Chetty, Hendren, Kline, Saez, & Turner, 2014) to geospatially analyze the social mobility of children born in the Golden State relative to their parents. Furthermore, this study leverages a complementary dataset from IPUMS USA (Ruggles, 2019) to provide evidence that Hispanic and Asian mobility is likely mischaracterized in California when non-legal permanent residents (non-LPR) are excluded.

A summary of the study’s findings (Executive Summary) and full research report are attached.

This report was published as part of a new research series, “A Civil Rights Agenda for California’s Next Quarter Century,” in commemoration of the Civil Rights Project’s 25th anniversary.

 

In compliance with the UC Open Access Policy, this report has been made available on eScholarship: escholarship.org/uc/item/171336h3

California’s Geography of Opportunity: Intergenerational Mobility in the Golden State
Research Report – California’s Geography of Opportunity
Download the Research report
Executive Summary – California’s Geography of Opportunity
Download the Research report
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