Philip Cohen, a sociologist that blogs at Family Inequality, recently argued, in response to the proposition that single-motherhood is strongly associated with economic mobility, that the single-motherhood effect is “entirely in the % black effect”.
Dear world: The single mother effect in Chetty is all in the % Black effect he left out: https://t.co/p78zHR7CbL pic.twitter.com/4ZDLMTVdwB
— Philip N. Cohen (@familyunequal) October 22, 2015
While I do not necessarily disagree with the notion that racial demographics are strong predictors (albeit probably for different reasons than he does) and I do not necessarily believe that the single-motherhood association is (mostly) causal, his strong language is clearly at odds with the data. In fact, his statements are not even well supported by his own stats.
