Poor children who make friends with rich kids are more likely to be rich themselves later in life, a new study has revealed.
Researchers from Harvard University analysed 21 billion friendships on Facebook to understand how the community you grow up in influences your future outcomes.
Their findings suggest that growing up in a community in which people of low and high socioeconomic status (SES) interact may improve children’s chances of being rich later in life.
Poor children who make friends with rich kids are more likely to be rich themselves later in life, a new study has revealed (stock image)
In the 1994 film, Richie Rich, the ‘richest kid in the world’ hooks up with a group of kids who prove they just might fill the void in his life
Previous studies have shown that the strength of a person’s social network and community (their social capital) influences a range of fields, including economics, health, and education.
However, until now, measuring social capital has proved difficult.
In their new study, the researchers turned to Facebook as a new means of measuring social capital.
The team analysed data from 70 million Facebook users in the US aged 25-44 and constructed several distinct measures of social capital for each ZIP code, high school, and college.
Their analysis revealed that economic connectedness – the proportion of high-SES friends among people with low-SES – was one of the strongest predictors of increased income later in life.
In fact, the results showed that if children with low-SES grew up in counties with economic connectedness comparable to that of the average child with high-SES in the US, their incomes in adult life would increase by 20 per cent on average.
In a follow-up study, the researchers then set out to understand what determines these social interactions across SES.
Based on the Facebook data, the team distinguished between differences in exposure to high-SES people (such as in their schools or in religious organisations), and friending bias – the rate at which people befriend high-SES people within their groups.
‘Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact,’ the team explained.
‘For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces.’
‘Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact,’ the team explained. ‘For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces’
Their findings suggest that about half the social disconnection in the US is driven by a lack of exposure to high-SES.
Meanwhile, the other half is driven by friending bias.
Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that measures should be put in place to reduce friending bias – and thus improve outcomes for low-SES children.
This includes changes in group size and tracking, restructuring of space and urban planning, creating new domains for interaction.
‘For example, the Boston gym Inner City Weightlifting (ICW) began a program to increase cross-SES connections by recruiting personal trainers from lower-SES backgrounds to coach their more affluent clients,’ the researchers cite as an example.
The study comes shortly after research revealed that people who have gone from ‘rags to riches’ are less likely to sympathise with the struggles of poverty than those who have always had money.
Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 people in the US and found that those who had moved up the economic ladder tended to see social mobility as being easier than people who were born rich.
As a result, they had less sympathy with those unable to follow them.
This runs contrary to the popular belief that coming from a privileged background makes you more indifferent to the economic plight of others.