Unsurprisingly, it depends on your field, with harder sciences tending to cite papers from academics or give them good jobs regardless of whether they are also from the rich.
There are some surprising lessons, though.
Philosophy is far and away the worst on both measures. If your terminal degree didn't come from one of those top schools, you probably will never have tenure; there's too much competition from those who did, and too few jobs in the field to exhaust the supply of Ivy Leaguers who want to teach. Likewise, the major philosophers as measured by citation form a sort of club, one that is sensitive to social class.
Note that mathematics is not too far away. To some degree, this may reflect that the wealthy are more likely to choose a pure knowledge field rather than one that will improve their station in life -- mathematics you'd think would be a field like microbiology where hard, demonstrable results mattered most. But maybe you don't usually study pure math (or philosophy) if your family is struggling. You'd go into engineering of some sort if you were good at math and needed social mobility.
I'm also surprised to see that Experimental Psychology falls where it does. I'm guessing that's a product of the replication crisis that is often tied to that field in particular: the ease of relative nobodies to get cited if they at least studied under somebody known suggests that the field is open to new ideas and ready to publish them. Since this study covers 2000-2013, when the crisis was in full effect, being positioned on that side of the graph may not always be an unalloyed good even if it's also a measure of relative equality of opportunity.
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Some of it may have to do with connections: even mathematics is not usually a solitary endeavor. You interact with colleagues who help suggest or critique ideas. If all other factors are equal, the student who gets to interact with the best will have an edge in doing good work thereafter--not to mention good letters of recommendation.
My cousin and her husband have been artists in NYC for decades. She tells me that a lot of NYC artists are trust fund babies. The implication being that one cannot support oneself in NYC as an artist without the support of a trust fund.
My cousin and her husband have been able, until recently, to survive financially without a trust fund. Now may be the time to leave the big city and move to the house in flyover country.
Yeah, my wife is an artist. Times are tough for artists. I don't see how you could do it in NYC without something like a trust fund or a patron.
I don't see how you could do it in NYC without something like a trust fund or a patron.
Something like: do it in D.C., and have a near relative highly placed in a politically influential position. Sell your art to those who have maxxed out the legal limits on "donations".
Yes, Hunter seems to manage quite well as a budding artist.
I don't see how you could do it in NYC without something like a trust fund or a patron.
Rent control is also helpful. My cousin's husband started renting their SoHo apartment/loft in the '70s. It was a shell. He installed floors, etc. It wasn't the landlord who put in the floors. They pay $600/ month rent, while those not under the rent control umbrella pay $6,000 per month rent in the same building. Which is part of the transformation from slum to gentrified neighborhood.
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