Black-white Differences in Social Mobility in the past 30 Years: a Multinomial Logit Latent-class Regression Analysis

This article introduces multinomial logit latent-class regression models for racial comparisons of intergenerational occupational mobility. The models distinguish mobility patterns by four latent classes, which are labeled as the “stable middle” (SM) class, the “downwardly mobile” (DM) class, the “upwardly mobile” (UM) class, and the “stable working” (SW) class. Compared with whites, blacks are shown to be greatly disadvantaged in two of the three elements of mobility chances that the distinction of these four latent classes identifies. One great disadvantage for blacks compared with whites comes from their poor status backgrounds, and is characterized by smaller odds of being in the group of the SM or DM classes versus the group of the UM or SW classes for blacks than for whites. The second disadvantage is a significantly smaller chance of experiencing upward mobility for blacks than for whites, controlling for education, among people with relatively low occupational status backgrounds. This is characterized by smaller odds of being in the UM versus the SW class for blacks than for whites. On the other hand, blacks are not significantly more likely than whites to experience downward mobility, which is characterized by the absence of racial difference in the odds of being in the DM class versus the SM class among people with relatively high occupational status backgrounds -although this situation applies only to a minority among blacks. Changes in the past 30 years in racial inequality/equality in these three elements of mobility chances are also analyzed.