Personal Finance

Chart: How Our Cities Impact the Future Incomes of Children

Published

6 years ago

September 16, 2016

Jeff Desjardins

Chart: How Our Cities Impact the Future Incomes of Children

How Our Cities Impact the Future Incomes of Children

Certain cities in America are better for upward mobility

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

In the long-standing psychology debate on nature versus nurture, the question is whether it is our genes or our experiences that hold the keys to our future.

The short answer to this question, according to many of today’s scientists and psychologists, is that nature and nurture are always working together. In other words, genes do what they do depending on their context, and nature and nurture work to influence each other constantly.

In other words, our family experiences, households, and neighborhoods can set the stage for how our genes react. And on a macro level, looking at cities can tell us a lot about how our environments can help to influence future outcomes.

A Tale of Two City Types

Today’s chart pulls out some of the most compelling data from a 2015 report on intergenerational mobility.

The report studies five million families that have moved between counties in the United States, ultimately showing that there is a “childhood exposure effect” in cities that helps to predict future income levels as adults. Put another way, some cities are better than others in helping kids move “up the ladder” by accessing opportunities that later affect income. On balance, other places provide a tougher environment that makes it harder.

In this case, it should be noted that our above chart specifically deals with the city “bonuses” or “penalties”, expressed as an annual dollar amount for every year exposed to a city’s environment, on the future earnings of children in low-income families (25th percentile).

Digging into City Data

On an individual level, a person can of course succeed or fail regardless of their family or neighborhood. This happens all the time, and there are countless examples of rags-to-riches stories.

The concern highlighted by this study is that, on the whole, there is a significant disparity between cities as far as predicting future income goes. Growing up for an entire childhood in New Orleans or Los Angeles, on average, means that future income will be lower than the national median. In Salt Lake City or Boston, it’s likely to be higher than the national median.

The “bonuses” and “penalties” add up. For example, spending an entire childhood in New Orleans is estimated to lower future income to -$3,150 below the national median.

Cities in the Northeast seem to have the most mixed bag of “place effects”. New York, Philadelphia, and Buffalo have negative effects, while Boston and Washington, D.C. are both positive.

Meanwhile, the Southeast, Midwest, and Southwest all see a similar negative effect through major cities. Minneapolis and Pittsburgh are exceptions to this rule.

Finally, cities in the West appear to mostly have positive effects, with the exception of Los Angeles and Fresno (not on map).

Related Topics:united states cities income inequality upward mobility children

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Personal Finance

Ranked: The Best Countries to Retire In

Which countries are the best equipped to support their aging population? This graphic show the best countries to retire in around the world.

Published

3 months ago

November 21, 2022

Raul Amoros

which countries are the best places to retire

Ranked: The Best Countries to Retire in Around the World

Our global population is getting older. By 2050, the OECD predicts that 30% of people worldwide will be aged 65 or over.

While some countries are relatively prepared to handle this increase in the elderly demographic, others are already feeling the squeeze and struggling with the challenges that come with a rapidly aging population.

Which countries are the best equipped to support their senior citizens? This graphic uses data from the 2022 Natixis Global Retirement Index to show the best countries to retire in around the world, based on several different factors that we’ll dig into below.

What Makes a Country Retirement-Friendly?

When people consider what makes a place an ideal retirement location, it’s natural to think about white sand beaches, hot climates, and endless sunny days. And, in truth, the right net worth opens up a world of opportunity of where to enjoy one’s golden years.

The Global Retirement Index (GRI) examines retirement from different, more quantitative perspective. The annual report looks at 44 different countries and ranks them based on their retirement security. The index considers 18 factors, which are grouped into four overarching categories:

Health: Health spend per capita, life expectancy, and non-insured health spend.
Quality of Life: Happiness levels, water and sanitation, air quality, other environmental factors, and biodiversity/habitat.
Material Wellbeing: Income per capita, income equality, and employment levels.
Finances in Retirement: Government debt, old-age dependency, interest rates, inflation, governance, tax pressure, and bank non-performing loans.

Using these 18 metrics, a score from 0.01 to 1 is determined for each country, which is then converted to a percentage. For a more detailed explanation of the report’s methodology, explore Appendix A (page 72) of the report.

The Top 25 Best Countries to Retire in

With an overall score of 81%, Norway comes in at number one as the most retirement-friendly country on the list.

Rank	Country	Score	Health	Quality of Life	Material Wellbeing	Finances in Retirement
1	🇳🇴 Norway	81%	91%	87%	79%	69%
2	🇨🇭 Switzerland	80%	90%	86%	69%	74%
3	🇮🇸 Iceland	79%	88%	86%	77%	68%
4	🇮🇪 Ireland	76%	89%	80%	67%	70%
5	🇦🇺 Australia	75%	88%	77%	66%	72%
6	🇳🇿 New Zealand	75%	85%	81%	64%	71%
7	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	75%	91%	81%	72%	59%
8	🇳🇱 Netherlands	75%	89%	80%	78%	56%
9	🇩🇰 Denmark	74%	86%	88%	76%	54%
10	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	73%	76%	68%	84%	64%
11	🇩🇪 Germany	72%	87%	80%	71%	55%
12	🇫🇮 Finland	71%	84%	89%	63%	55%
13	🇸🇪 Sweden	71%	90%	87%	59%	56%
14	🇦🇹 Austria	71%	86%	82%	69%	54%
15	🇨🇦 Canada	71%	87%	74%	58%	67%
16	🇮🇱 Israel	70%	82%	74%	60%	66%
17	🇰🇷 South Korea	70%	80%	59%	68%	73%
18	🇺🇸 United States	69%	85%	72%	56%	67%
19	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	69%	83%	82%	61%	55%
20	🇧🇪 Belgium	69%	85%	74%	70%	51%
21	🇸🇮 Slovenia	69%	82%	69%	77%	51%
22	🇯🇵 Japan	69%	91%	67%	72%	51%
23	🇲🇹 Malta	68%	78%	61%	72%	63%
24	🇫🇷 France	66%	90%	78%	57%	48%
25	🇪🇪 Estonia	66%	68%	68%	60%	68%

Norway is at the top of this year’s ranking for several reasons. For starters, it achieved the highest score in the Health category, largely because of its high average life expectancy, which is 83 years old, or 9 years longer than the global average.

Norway also has the highest score of all the countries for Governance, a category gauged by assessing country corruption levels, political stability, and government effectiveness, and is in a three-way tie with Japan and Luxembourg in the Health category.

Second on the list is another European country, Switzerland, with an overall score of 80%. It’s the highest-ranked country for environmental factors, and it also has the highest overall score in the Finances in Retirement category.

A Regional Breakdown

While European countries dominate the top 10 in the ranking, how does Europe rank as a region as a whole? Before diving in, it’s important to note that the study actually breaks up Europe into two sections: Eastern Europe (grouped with Central Asia) and Western Europe.

Rank	Region	Overall Score
1	North America	69%
2	Western Europe	66%
3	Eastern Europe and Central Asia	49%
4	Latin America	37%
5	Asia Pacific	32%

And from a regional perspective, North America comes in first place despite the fact no countries in the region made it into the top 10. North America only has two countries included in the ranking: Canada (#15) and the U.S. (#18), which both rank relatively high.

In contrast, Western and Eastern Europe have more countries to account for, which ultimately lowers their regional average.

The Future of Retirement

As longevity rises and the retirement aged population continues to increase worldwide, many countries are opting to change their pension policies in an effort to encourage people to stay in the workforce longer.

For instance, in 2018, people in the UK could claim their State Pension once they turned 65. By 2028, this age requirement will be raised to 67.

However, government intervention may not be necessary, as many people around the world are already staying in the workforce beyond the traditional retirement age (perhaps more out of necessity than choice).