Intergenerational Inequality Transmission
Certain groups have short shrift. In part this may be because they face hostile social circumstances; in part it may be because they continue to suffer the consequences of hostile historical circumstances.
Hostile historical circumstances are likely to affect some groups more than others. Specifically, groups that match and reproduce internally (for whatever reason) are likely to experience more persistence than groups that mix. This innocuous observation has an important implication: because (in the West, at least) the sex ratio is close to 1, inequality between men and women can be wiped out in a single generation. If, at some remarkable point in time, everyone in the population switches from believing in gender discrimination to believing in gender non-discrimination, the next generation to be born will be composed of sons and daughters whose parents choose to treat them equally.
This implication contrasts with the observation’s implications for racial inequality, for example. Reproductive matching within racial groups perpetuates disparity.
