National politics in the United States, Great Britain, France, and elsewhere have focused attention on the struggles of people in regions where jobs have been destroyed by globalization and technology. Many residents of these areas report anger and frustration, whether or not they have actually suffered job loss, fearing that their children will not do as well as they have. When researchers began to identify these forces increasing economic inequality (1), labor economists argued that intergenerational upward mobility should increase hand-in-hand with increasing inequality. This claim was predicated on the notion that working-class youth, rather than following their parents' footsteps to the now-closed factory, would pursue higher education
