Does it take six generations to enter the middle class when one comes from the working class, as Xavier Bertrand asserts?

“Today you need six generations to be able to access the middle class when you are in the popular category. There is only one country in Europe which is behind us, it is Hungary”, said the president of the Hauts-de-France region and presidential candidate Xavier Bertrand, interviewed Monday, October 4 on franceinfo. An OECD study confirms this breakdown of the social elevator in France, but also in other European countries.

An OECD report published in 2018 entitled “The broken social elevator? How to promote social mobility“, confirms this finding. The authors of this study analyzed several cohorts over several years and established that given the persistence of the income disparities between father and son observed over several decades, six generations, or 180 years, would be required. so that a French child from a modest family can rise to the level of average income.
The study clearly says that in France “socio-economic status is transmitted largely from generation to generation”. Clearly, low-income men very often had low-income fathers themselves.

Xavier Bertrand is also right to assert that among the European countries, only Hungary does less well than France in this area. The OECD study does establish that it takes seven generations in Hungary to reach the middle class. However, Germany has the same difficulty as France since it also takes six generations for a German to move from the bottom of the ladder to an average income.

Beyond this classification, this study has reported a more global problem of social mobility for several years, since on average in OECD countries it takes five generations to climb to an average income when you come from a poor family. Only the Nordic countries are doing well since they only need two to three generations.

However, this report puts forward possible solutions for States to counter this pessimistic projection. For France, for example, he recommends supporting schools for disadvantaged children, reducing long-term unemployment or even seeking to limit the geographic concentration of poverty.