Unit 14 · Class and Culture Today

Think about two neighbors. Ana earns $80,000 a year as a nurse, but she rents her apartment and still owes money on student loans. Ben earns $40,000 a year at a part-time job, but he inherited a paid-off house and some savings from his grandparents. Who is better off? The answer depends on whether you look at income or wealth.

Income is the money that comes in over a period of time, such as wages, salary, rent from property, or interest from savings. Wealth is a snapshot of everything a person owns, such as a home, savings and stocks, minus everything they owe. Economists call wealth net worth. A person can have a high income but little wealth, or a small income but a lot of wealth.

The difference matters because wealth is usually shared much less evenly than income. In the United States, the Federal Reserve estimates that the richest tenth of households hold about two-thirds of all household wealth. The bottom half of households hold only a few percent. Wealth can also be passed down to children, so it helps explain why advantages can last across generations.

Wealth also acts as a cushion. A family with savings can survive a lost job or a medical bill. A family with no savings may have to borrow at high interest. Wealth can pay for college, a first home, or starting a business. That is why many researchers who study opportunity look closely at wealth, not just at paychecks.

Imagine a class of 30 students sharing 30 pizzas. If every student gets one pizza, the sharing is perfectly equal. If one student gets all 30 and everyone else gets nothing, the sharing is perfectly unequal. Real countries fall somewhere in between. Economists wanted one simple number to show where a country falls on that scale.

The most common tool is the Gini coefficient, named after the Italian statistician Corrado Gini, who described it in 1912. It runs from 0 to 1. A score of 0 means everyone has the same income. A score of 1 means one person has all of it. Many reports multiply the score by 100, so a Gini of 0.40 is often written as 40. Higher means more inequality, or a bigger gap.

The World Bank publishes Gini estimates for most countries. Nordic countries such as Norway, Denmark and Finland usually score in the mid to high 20s. The United States scores a little above 40. Latin America is often described as one of the most unequal regions, with Brazil and Colombia scoring above 50. South Africa has one of the highest scores measured anywhere, above 60.

A single number has limits. Two countries can have the same Gini but very different lives at the bottom. The Gini also says nothing about why a gap exists. Some measures use income before taxes, and others use income after taxes and government benefits. So careful readers always ask: which income, which year, and measured by whom?

A family in rural Malawi and a family in Chicago may both be called poor. Yet their lives are very different. The Malawi family may lack clean water and electricity. The Chicago family may have both but struggle to pay rent. To compare them, researchers need clear rules about what counts as poverty.

One rule is absolute poverty, which uses a fixed line that does not change from country to country. The World Bank sets an international line for extreme poverty. In 2022 it set that line at $2.15 per person per day, adjusted for prices in each country. In 2025 it raised the line to $3.00, using newer price data. Below that line, people struggle to afford enough food, shelter and basic care.

Another rule is relative poverty. Here, a person is poor if they have much less than most people in their own country. Many European countries count a household as poor if its income is below 60 percent of the middle income. Under this rule, a family in Norway could count as poor even though it lives far above the World Bank line.

Each measure answers a different question. Absolute lines ask whether people can meet basic needs. Relative lines ask whether people can take part in normal life where they live, like joining a school trip. Arguments about poverty often come down to which measure a speaker is using, so it helps to ask.

Picture a ladder with ten rungs. Everyone in a country stands on one rung, from the lowest incomes to the highest. Now picture the children of each person. Do the children end up on the same rung as their parents? Or do some climb higher and some slip lower? That movement is what social mobility means.

Researchers study two kinds. Intergenerational mobility compares children with their parents, such as a farmworker’s daughter who becomes an engineer. Movement within one person’s lifetime is called intra-generational mobility, like a cashier who becomes a store manager. Mobility can also be absolute or relative. Absolute mobility asks whether children earn more than their parents did at the same age. Relative mobility asks whether children change rungs compared with everyone else.

The economist Raj Chetty and his team studied tax records to measure absolute mobility in the United States. They found that about 90 percent of Americans born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents. For those born in 1980, it was about 50 percent. They found the main reason was that growth was shared less evenly. Slower growth also played a part.

High mobility is often seen as a sign of fairness. It suggests that talent and effort, not just family, shape where people end up. But people disagree about how much mobility is realistic and what helps it most. Some point to schools and neighborhoods. Others point to families, work and a growing economy.

In the novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, a poor young man remakes himself as a rich one. But he never fully breaks into the old-money world he admires. In 2012 the economist Alan Krueger, then an adviser to the U.S. president, borrowed the book’s title for a graph. The graph used research by the Canadian economist Miles Corak.

The graph places countries on two measures. One is income inequality, often measured by the Gini coefficient. The other is how closely children’s earnings follow their parents’ earnings. Economists call that second measure earnings persistence. When they drew the dots, a pattern appeared. Countries like Denmark and Norway had low inequality and low persistence. The United States and the United Kingdom had higher inequality and higher persistence.

This pattern is called the Great Gatsby curve. It is a correlation, meaning two things rise and fall together. A correlation does not prove that one causes the other. Supporters argue that big gaps let rich families buy advantages, such as better schools and tutors, which keeps children near their parents’ rung.

Critics raise questions. Some say the countries differ in many ways, such as size, history and population, so the curve may mix up causes. Others say the data for some countries are weak. Still others argue that growth and strong families matter more than gaps. Economists still debate how much the curve tells us about cause.

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act. It gave federal land to states to build public colleges. The University of Illinois grew from that law. For millions of students since then, a public college has been a step up. Education is often called a ladder because it can lift people whose parents never had the chance.

The numbers show why. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that workers with a bachelor’s degree earn much more, on average, than workers with only a high school diploma. They are also less likely to be out of work. Economists call the extra pay for a degree the college premium. Skills and training are sometimes called human capital, because they work like an investment that pays off later.

But the ladder is not equal for everyone. In the United States, schools are partly paid for by local property taxes. Richer areas can often spend more per student. Families with more money can pay for tutors, test preparation and summer programs. So schooling can lift some students up while helping others stay ahead.

Countries try different fixes. Finland aims to give every school similar resources and trains all teachers to a high level. South Korea has intense exams, and many families pay for private after-school academies called hagwons. People argue about which approach helps most. Many agree that early childhood learning and strong teachers make a real difference.

In Britain, people have often been able to guess each other’s class within a few words. For generations, an accent called Received Pronunciation was linked to the upper and upper-middle class and to the BBC. Regional accents from Liverpool, Glasgow or East London were sometimes looked down on. Many working-class Britons are proud of their accents, and today the BBC hires presenters with many different ones.

Schools are another signal. In Britain, the oldest private schools, such as Eton and Harrow, are confusingly called public schools. Fees are high. The Sutton Trust, a charity that studies mobility, reports that only about 7 percent of British pupils attend private schools. Yet its 2019 study found that people from private schools held a much larger share of top jobs, such as senior judges.

The word elite means a small group at the top of a society. Critics argue that Britain’s elite reproduces itself, with the same schools feeding the same universities, Oxford and Cambridge, and then the same jobs. Supporters of private schools reply that parents have a right to choose, and that the schools often give scholarships and share facilities.

Britain has also changed a great deal. After World War II, free secondary school and later new universities opened doors. Many prime ministers since then went to state schools. The debate today is about how fast the doors are opening, and what would open them wider.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was born in 1891 into a caste that others treated as untouchable. As a boy, he was made to sit apart at school. He went on to earn doctorates in New York and London. After independence he led the committee that wrote India’s Constitution, adopted in 1950. It banned untouchability and made room for the policy known as reservations.

Reservations set aside a share of seats in public colleges, government jobs and legislatures. At first they covered Scheduled Castes, the official name for groups once treated as untouchable, and Scheduled Tribes. In 1990 the government extended reservations to groups called Other Backward Classes, following the Mandal Commission report. In 1992 India’s Supreme Court ruled that reservations should generally not go above 50 percent.

Supporters say reservations have opened doors for millions. They point to Dalit doctors, officers and members of Parliament whose families were once shut out. Dalit, meaning broken or oppressed, is a name many members of these communities chose for themselves. Supporters say caste bias still exists, so the help is still needed.

Critics raise other points. Some say benefits go mostly to better-off families within each group. Others argue that jobs should go by merit or by family income, not by caste. In 2019 India added a 10 percent reservation for poorer families outside the older groups. The debate continues in courts, colleges and elections.

In 1978, most people in China were farmers, and most were very poor. That year, a group of farmers in the village of Xiaogang secretly divided their collective land. Each family agreed to farm its own plot and keep what it grew above a quota. Their harvest jumped. Soon the government under Deng Xiaoping allowed this system across the country.

These changes were called reform and opening. Farmers could sell extra crops at market prices. In 1980 China created special economic zones, such as Shenzhen, where foreign companies could build factories. Shenzhen grew from a small town into one of the world’s great cities. The Communist Party kept political control, but the economy became much more open to markets.

The results were huge. The World Bank estimates that close to 800 million people in China left extreme poverty from 1978 to about 2020. That is roughly three-quarters of the global drop in extreme poverty over those years. Millions moved from villages to cities to work in factories, building roads and shipping goods around the world.

The climb also brought new gaps. China’s Gini rose, and coastal cities pulled ahead of inland villages. The hukou system, a household registration rule, often kept migrant workers from getting the same schools and health care as city-born residents. Some credit markets for the growth. Others credit the state’s planning. Both sides study China closely.

Two students watch the same news story about a closed factory in a small town. One says the company and the government let those workers down. The other says the town needs new businesses and workers need new skills. Both care about the workers. They just start from different ideas about what causes gaps and what fixes them.

Thinkers on the political left often stress structural causes. These are forces bigger than one person, such as unequal schools, discrimination, weak unions or tax rules that favor the rich. The philosopher John Rawls argued in 1971 that a fair society allows inequalities only if they help the worst-off. The left often supports higher taxes on the rich, stronger unions and public programs.

Thinkers on the political right often stress freedom, markets and personal responsibility. They argue that growth lifts most people, even if some rise faster. They point out that high taxes can weaken the reasons to work, save and invent. The economist Milton Friedman argued that putting equality ahead of freedom would harm both. The right often supports lower taxes, school choice and strong families.

Many people mix these views. Most agree that both personal choices and outside forces shape lives. The debate is about how much weight each deserves, and what a government should do. Good arguments on either side use evidence, like the data in this chapter.

Norway taxes its citizens heavily and pays for free college, long paid parental leave and public health care. Singapore keeps many taxes low but requires workers to save part of every paycheck and builds public housing where most citizens live. Both countries are rich. They took different paths to share the gains.

One common tool is redistribution, moving money from richer to poorer through taxes and benefits. A progressive tax takes a higher percentage from higher incomes. In many European countries, taxes and benefits cut the Gini a great deal compared with income before taxes. Supporters say this protects families and gives children a fairer start. Critics say high taxes can slow growth and reduce the reward for effort.

Other tools focus on opportunity rather than outcomes. These include early childhood programs, job training and scholarships. Some focus on growth, such as lowering barriers to starting a business. Supporters on the right often argue that a growing economy creates more jobs and more chances to climb.

No country uses only one tool. Most mix taxes, public services and markets in different amounts. Voters in each country argue about the right mix. The best choice depends on what people value most, such as equality, freedom, security or growth, and on what the evidence shows works.

In 2012 the South Korean singer Psy released "Gangnam Style." Its music video became the first on YouTube to pass one billion views. A few years later, the group BTS was filling stadiums in the United States and Brazil. In 2018 members of BTS spoke at the United Nations. Fans who did not speak Korean learned the words to their songs anyway.

This spread is often called the Korean Wave, or Hallyu. It began with Korean TV dramas that became popular across Asia in the late 1990s. The South Korean government and companies invested in music, film and games. In 2020 the Korean film Parasite became the first film not in English to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Japan’s anime, or animated film and TV, followed a similar path. Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003. Series like Pokémon and Dragon Ball became favorites for children on every continent. Manga, the Japanese comics that many anime come from, now fill shelves in American libraries.

The spread of goods, ideas and culture across the world is called globalization. Some people worry it will make every place the same. But the Korean Wave shows a different pattern. Culture no longer flows only from the United States outward. Smaller countries can now reach huge audiences, and fans often learn about the place the culture came from.

In Mumbai, India’s largest city, film studios turn out hundreds of movies a year. This Hindi-language film industry is known as Bollywood, a blend of Bombay, the city’s older name, and Hollywood. Bollywood films are famous for long stories, big family dramas and song-and-dance scenes. India as a whole makes more films each year than almost any other country.

Bollywood travels with the diaspora, the people of Indian heritage living around the world. Films open in London, Dubai, Toronto and Chicago. They are also popular in places with few Indian residents, such as parts of Africa and Central Asia. Many fans love the music and dancing even if they read the subtitles.

Reggaeton has a different story. It grew in Panama and Puerto Rico in the 1990s. It mixed Jamaican reggae and dancehall, hip-hop and Latin rhythms, with lyrics in Spanish. At first some radio stations would not play it. By 2017, "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee became one of the most-streamed songs in history.

Both styles show cultural hybridity, the mixing of traditions into something new. Bollywood borrows from Indian classical dance and Hollywood musicals. Reggaeton borrows from Caribbean, African American and Latin music. In each case, the new style became a source of pride for the people who created it.

Order chicken tikka masala in London, and you are eating a dish many Britons call a national favorite. Its exact origin is debated, but it is widely linked to South Asian cooks in Britain. Order a California roll in Tokyo, and you may be eating sushi first made popular in North America. Food changes as it moves.

Food has always traveled. Chiles, tomatoes, corn and potatoes came from the Americas. After 1492 they spread to Europe, Africa and Asia in what historians call the Columbian Exchange. Before that, there were no chiles in Indian curry and no tomatoes in Italian sauce. Many dishes people think of as ancient are only a few centuries old.

Today, migrants carry food with them and open restaurants in new countries. Cooks often adjust recipes to local tastes and ingredients. This process is called adaptation. Chinese American dishes like General Tso’s chicken are quite different from food in most of China. Tex-Mex food grew from Mexican cooking in Texas.

Some people say adapted dishes are less real. Others say adaptation is how food cultures have always stayed alive. Many immigrant cooks run two menus, one for newcomers and one for people from home. Food lets people share their culture with neighbors while keeping a taste of where they came from.

In 1990 a young nurse left Manila, in the Philippines, for a hospital job in New York. Her pay in the United States was many times higher, and she sent part of it home each month. Her story is one of millions. The United Nations estimates that about 281 million people lived outside the country they were born in by 2020.

Researchers sort causes into two kinds. Push factors drive people away, such as war, poverty, disasters or persecution. Pull factors draw them in, such as jobs, safety, schools or family already living there. Most people move for a mix of both. The largest sources of migrants today include India, Mexico, Russia and China.

A refugee is a person forced to flee their country because of war or persecution. International law, including a 1951 United Nations convention, gives refugees the right not to be sent back to danger. Other migrants move by choice to work or study. Many send money home. These payments, called remittances, are a major source of income for countries like Mexico, the Philippines and India.

Migration changes both places. Home countries can lose skilled workers but gain money and new ideas. New countries gain workers, businesses and culture. They also face questions about jobs, housing and how newcomers fit in. Those questions are at the center of the debates in the next lesson.

In 1908 a play called The Melting Pot opened in the United States. Its writer, Israel Zangwill, pictured immigrants blending into one new American people. That idea is called assimilation: newcomers adopt the language and customs of their new country and become part of the mainstream. Many American public schools once taught this goal directly.

Canada chose another path. In 1971 it became one of the first countries to adopt multiculturalism as official policy. The idea is that groups can keep their languages and traditions while being full citizens. Supporters often compare Canada to a mosaic, where each piece keeps its color. France, by contrast, stresses one shared republican identity and keeps religion out of public schools. A 2004 law bans conspicuous religious symbols there.

Many countries now speak of integration, a middle path. Newcomers learn the language and laws and take part in work and civic life. They may keep their culture at home and in their communities. Integration is described as two-way: newcomers adapt, and the country also adapts to them.

Each approach has critics. Some say assimilation erases heritage. Others say multiculturalism can leave groups living apart. In 2010 German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country’s attempt at multiculturalism had failed, and she called for more focus on learning German. Supporters of each model point to places where it has worked.

In a town meeting, a factory owner says she cannot find enough workers and wants more visas. A retired machinist worries that newcomers will lower wages. A teacher says her classroom is richer for the students from many countries. A nurse points out that half the aides at her hospital were born abroad. Each speaker is describing something real.

Supporters of more migration often argue that newcomers fill jobs and start businesses. They say migrants pay taxes and help aging countries with too few young workers. Many also make a moral case: people fleeing danger deserve safety. Economists have found that migrants often start new companies at high rates.

People who want less or more controlled migration raise other concerns. Some worry about wages for workers without college degrees, pressure on housing and schools, or the speed of change in a neighborhood. Many stress the rule of law: that a country has the right to decide who enters and to enforce its rules. Economists disagree about how large the wage effects are.

These debates are about values as well as facts. How much should a country weigh the needs of newcomers against those of current residents? How fast can a community change and still hold together? Good arguments on any side use evidence and describe the other side fairly.

In 1982 a group of Māori elders in New Zealand opened small preschools called kōhanga reo, meaning language nests. Grandparents spoke only Māori to the toddlers all day. At that time, few Māori children spoke the language of their ancestors. Hundreds of language nests followed, then Māori-language schools. Today many more young Māori speak the language.

Experts count about 7,000 languages in the world. Groups that track them, such as Ethnologue and UNESCO, estimate that around 40 percent are endangered. An endangered language is one that children are no longer learning at home. When the last speakers pass away, a language becomes extinct, and with it go songs, stories and ways of seeing the world.

Languages often fade because of pressure from a bigger language used in schools, jobs and media. In the past, many governments punished children for speaking their home language at school. This happened in American Indian boarding schools in the United States and in other countries. Language revitalization is the work of bringing a language back into daily life.

There are success stories. Hebrew was revived as an everyday spoken language in the late 1800s and 1900s. Welsh is taught in every school in Wales. In Paraguay, most people speak Guaraní, an Indigenous language that is official alongside Spanish. Each case shows that schools, families and pride can keep a language alive.

In northern Norway, the Sámi people have herded reindeer for centuries. In 1989 Norway opened a Sámi Parliament, an elected body that speaks for the Sámi on language, culture and land. Sweden and Finland have Sámi parliaments too. The Sámi still debate with governments about mines and wind farms on their traditional grazing lands.

Indigenous peoples are the descendants of the people who lived in a place before later settlers or states arrived. The United Nations estimates there are about 476 million Indigenous people in about 90 countries. They include Quechua communities in Peru, Māori in New Zealand, Ainu in Japan and hundreds of Native nations in the United States.

In 2007 the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It affirms rights to culture, language and land, and to be consulted on projects that affect them. In the United States, there are over 570 federally recognized tribes. Each is a sovereign nation with its own government, which can run courts, schools and businesses.

Challenges remain. Many Indigenous communities face higher rates of poverty and fewer health services. Many also lead in protecting forests and rivers. Japan formally recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous people in a 2019 law. Change is often slow, but Indigenous leaders continue to shape it.

In 2012 the Navajo Nation sued a clothing company that sold items labeled "Navajo," including underwear and a flask. The Navajo Nation had registered its name as a trademark. It argued that the products used its name without permission and misled buyers. The case was settled in 2016. It sparked a wide debate about who can use a culture’s name and symbols.

Cultural exchange is the sharing of ideas, arts and customs between groups, usually with respect and on both sides. It has always happened. Cultural appropriation is a term some people use when members of a more powerful group take elements of another culture without understanding, credit or permission. The concern is sharpest when the item is sacred, such as a feathered headdress worn in ceremonies.

People disagree about where the line falls. Some argue that borrowing is how culture grows, and that labeling it appropriation can discourage people from learning about others. Others argue that it matters who profits and who gets credit, especially for groups that were once punished for practicing their own culture.

Many people suggest a few questions to ask. Is the item sacred to the group? Does the group get credit or share the profit? Was it shared by members of that culture? Did I learn its meaning? These questions do not settle every case, but they help people think it through with respect.

Pilsen, on Chicago’s Lower West Side, was first home to Czech immigrants in the late 1800s. They named it after Plzeň, a city in Bohemia. Many brick buildings and churches from that time still stand. Starting in the mid-1900s, Mexican families moved in, and Pilsen became one of the best-known Mexican American neighborhoods in the country.

Pilsen is famous for its murals, painted on walls, viaducts and schools. They show scenes from Mexican history, Aztec symbols and local leaders. The National Museum of Mexican Art, founded in 1982, is in Harrison Park. In recent years, rising rents and new businesses have brought gentrification. That means wealthier newcomers move in and costs rise, sometimes pushing out longtime residents.

A few miles east, Chicago’s Chinatown centers on Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue. Chinese immigrants moved there in the early 1900s from an older area downtown. The Chinatown Gate and the Pui Tak Center, with its green-and-red tile roof, are well-known landmarks. The neighborhood has grown with newer arrivals from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Both neighborhoods are examples of an ethnic enclave, an area where many people share a heritage. Enclaves give newcomers help with jobs, language and housing. Critics once worried they kept people apart. Many residents see them as a bridge, a home base for joining the wider city.

On Devon Avenue, in the West Ridge neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, one block may hold a sari shop, a Pakistani restaurant and a kosher bakery. Since the 1970s, many immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have opened businesses there. Earlier, the area was home to a large Jewish community, which is still present. Some stretches of the street carry honorary names for Gandhi and for Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan.

Devon Avenue shows pluralism, the idea that many groups with different faiths and backgrounds can live side by side as equals. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Christians shop on the same street. India and Pakistan have a long and tense history. Yet here, their emigrants run businesses next to each other and serve each other’s families.

Ukrainian Village, west of downtown, grew in the early 1900s as Ukrainian immigrants arrived. The many domes of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral rise over the neighborhood. The Ukrainian National Museum and churches keep traditions alive, such as pysanky, eggs decorated with wax and dye for Easter.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the neighborhood has held rallies and collected aid. Longtime families have also welcomed new arrivals fleeing the war. The neighborhood has changed too, with many young residents of every background. Chicago’s neighborhoods show that identity can be both deeply rooted and open to change.