Opportunity inequality in Amsterdam

Het Parool

In an article by the Dutch paper Het Parool, Bastian Ravesteijn, Assistant Professor of Applied Economics at Erasmus School of Economics, and Coen van de Kraats, PhD candidate at Erasmus School of Economics, talk about opportunity inequality in Amsterdam. In doing so, Ravesteijn and Van de Kraats compared the incomes of people who grew up in different neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. 

It had previously been concluded that people in their thirties who grew up in Amsterdam with low-income parents are now often low-income themselves. Ravesteijn, together with his team, researched how that is with today's youth. Even today, the situation you grow up in determines a lot about your eventual financial position. 'There is a strong relationship between the circumstances of the family you grow up in and your eventual position on the social ladder,' the Assistant Professor argues. 

Following that, Ravesteijn concludes that children growing up in certain neighbourhoods such as Oud-Zuid or Watergraafsmeer often have a big head start compared to children growing up in other neighbourhoods. For example, they score significantly higher on average on the Cito test, which may be due to the fact that they have a lot more study space than someone growing up in a smaller house.

Assistant professor
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You can download the full article from Het Parool, 28 January 2023, above.