Kapitał kulturowy rodziny odpowiada w Polsce aż za 77 proc. nierówności szans, miejsce dorastania za 18 proc., a płeć ledwie za 5 proc. Inaczej mówiąc, dziewczynka mająca dobrze wykształconych rodziców będzie mieć w Polsce zdecydowanie łatwiej niż chłopiec z domu, w którym oboje partnerzy mają wykształcenie zawodowe.
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A few days ago there was a lively discussion on the X portal about doctors' salaries, in which the latter, of course, took part - because doctors don't like it when their salaries are analyzed in too much detail.
The arguments of the medics were hardly original, and mainly focused on the enormous effort they put into their education, even adding high school period to their professional training time to make it look more impressive. In the course of the discussion, however, one doctor got off and, when asked why he chose the profession in the first place, bluntly stated: "my family has always been medical."
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/warszawa-przywileje-transformacja-pochodzenie/
In this case, you can take his word for it, since the inheritance of a profession in this industry is rather the norm. From a young age, a person listens to his parents' conversations at home about the day's work, so later he more easily assimilates knowledge in this particular field. It's so natural for him that later he doesn't even remember it - all that's left in his head are years of study and hard work, which he uses as an argument in discussions on X.
If this mechanism applied only to one rather specific profession, it would be easier to counteract it. The problem is that not only the medical profession is often inherited, but in general class position and occupation. In other words, the children of doctors do not become poor, even if by some chance they did not become doctors themselves.
In Central and Eastern Europe you win already at the start
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This is shown in the latest edition of research by the EBRD's Life In Transition, which analyzes the economic and social situation in the former communist bloc countries, including Germany, but comparatively, countries from all regions of the world also appear there.
The most common area of interest there is inequality of opportunity, shown as the importance for later earnings of factors beyond one's own control. These factors are gender, place of birth (urban or rural) and parents' cultural capital, which consists of their education, occupational group and the number of books in the home.
The study's authors conventionally divided countries into four groups. Countries where income inequality is both high and predetermined (the amount of earnings is largely already shaped at birth) include primarily South American countries - Chile, Brazil, Colombia or Argentina - and some European countries (Spain, Romania, Latvia).
Countries where earnings inequality is high, but is not already determined at birth, are mainly countries in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), the Balkans (Macedonia, Montenegro) and near the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey). There is also a group of countries where, although income stratification is rather low, but inequality of opportunity is high - it is in this group that Poland found itself, accompanied by a great many countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and Bulgaria).
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/czytaj-dalej/nierownosci-po-polsku-o-ksiazce-markiewka/
However, there is also a group of countries that not only have low inequality, but also have low inequality of opportunity. Among the lucky ones are the Nordic nations (Norway, Denmark, Finland), the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Of course, there too, factors beyond one's control determine earnings to some extent, but their effects are more limited.
How much does cultural capital mean in Poland
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The inequality of opportunity index in the EBRD publication is shown as a percentage of total income inequality. In other words, since it is less than 20 percent in the Netherlands, one-fifth of income inequality there is the result of factors determined at birth - that is, gender, place of residence and parents' cultural capital.
The Netherlands turned out to be one of the front-runners, but it still doesn't have a head start on Denmark, where inequality of opportunity is barely 5 percent. In Germany, a quarter of income stratification is the result of unevenly distributed opportunities, and in the Czech Republic, a third. At the other end of the table are Brazil and Azerbaijan, where nearly 60 percent of income inequality is the result of factors based on birth alone.
In this regard, Poland came out as one of the least stratified countries in terms of income, but with a huge impact of factors beyond one's own control. The rate of inequality of opportunity was 50 percent, or half of income stratification is due to the former. Inequality of opportunity in Poland is thus ten times greater than in Denmark and 2.5 times greater than in the Netherlands.
Similar results to Poland were recorded by Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro and Chile, among others. In addition to Brazil, slightly greater inequality of opportunity than in Poland is found in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Azerbaijan and Peru - with all of these countries also having much greater economic inequality, so it cannot be said that overall our situation is similar. Undoubtedly, it is much better. The influence of the specifics of the family home on professional success is comparable there, but achieving success does not give Poland as much of an economic advantage as in the countries mentioned above.
To make matters worse, inequality of opportunity in Poland - as in all the analyzed countries combined - is growing rapidly. In the previous study (2016), factors based on birth influenced one-third of income stratification in the Vistula - now it is already half.
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/nierownosci-po-polsku-w-edukacji-slabszym-pogorszylo-sie-bardziej-niz-mocniejszym-rozmowa/
Poland also stands out in terms of the impact of parents' cultural capital on inequality. Here, family cultural capital is responsible for as much as 77 percent of inequality of opportunity, place of growing up for 18 percent, and gender barely for 5 percent. In other words, a girl with well-educated parents will have it much easier in Poland than a boy from a home where both partners have a vocational education.
Why fighting inequality is in the interest of successful people
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Of course, a family's cultural capital, especially education, plays a huge role in the careers of their offspring in every latitude.
For example, Paul Novosad, an economist at Ivy League member Dartmouth University, and his colleagues studied the education, occupation and estimated income of the fathers of all Nobel Prize winners between 1901 and 2023. The fathers of half of the Nobel laureates were among the wealthiest 5 percent in their country. As many as two-thirds of the Nobel laureates were descendants of men belonging to the top 10 percent in terms of earnings. No previous Nobel laureate came from the poorest 10 percent, while the fathers of three-quarters of the Nobel laureates belonged to the top 10 percent in terms of education.
The impact of ancestry on the results of professional efforts is therefore obvious and high. If I were the parents of all those smart-asses from X, who can write paeans to their hard work for hours on end, I would be very annoyed. Have you forgotten about mom and dad?
https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/czytaj-dalej/macieja-pisuka-opowiesci-o-ulicy-brzeskiej/
In fact, it is in the interest of so-called successful people to fight inequality of opportunity, not to deny it. When inequality is low, respect for high-status people grows, because there is a preconceived notion that their position is primarily the result of personal merit. On the other hand, when inequality of opportunity is high, respect for and trust in prestigious professions declines, because by definition they are considered heirs to status, even if some have not earned such a designation. Not to mention such a trifle that the acumen of physicians is particularly relevant, since the lack of public trust in this profession results in various very harmful phenomena - for example, avoidance of vaccinating children or disregard for pandemic regulations.
