- Throughout school, university and beyond, bright and ambitious children from middle and low-income families are routinely overtaken by their peers from more privileged backgrounds, even when they possess no more innate talent or obvious work ethic.
I wonder why that is. Maybe it's something to do with a larger availiability of resources for richer families, or possibly the experience of the parents influencing the child to a point that they are able to get higher wages.
I'm surprised that the article's author seems surprised. Here in America it seems more often taken for granted that parent's social status determine (to a degree) their childens'. And we've never had an aristocracy and tend to believe the Horatio Alger myth. This is the same as it's ever been. The Chinese ran a meritocratic system for centuries. Who do you think tended to fare better in the imperial examinations? The sons of merchants or the sons of bureaucrats? Obviously the latter, because their parents could afford tutors and they themseves didn't have to work and could study instead. The other major factor is family connections. I've seen it in my own personal life. My wealthier friends got higher-paying jobs because their dads schmoozed at the country club. My friends of more modest means, myself included, were on their own. I'm more inclined to turn the interpretation of this article on its head, "Graduates who were educated at private school are only paid 7 per cent more on average"