Even if the empirical evidence supports my conjecture, it is not clear whether there is the need for any intervention.

The competition has the potential to increase stress among the children in society, and this is probably not good for public health in general.

you mean state intervention by providing some funding to solve the problem?

I totally agree. I see this inequality through my students. those whose parents are wealthy, or have a fairly high level of education, find their routes more easily because this path is already "cleaned" or marked by the parents !!! I am outraged

Jaroslav Dvorak I am not sure if it is a problem in the first place. And if in fact, it is a problem, it is not clear what the state can actually do.

Nawal El-kahina Khelalfa Certainly you are outraged. The question is: is it a problem for society, and how should society try to solve this problem. Maybe you can suggest some ideas that are relevant for your country.

Joseph Tham somewhere read if Bill Gates born in Madagaskar will become Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft?

Jaroslav Dvorak Confused with the story. Is it about some kind of time travel or parallel, multi-universes? please explain. As i often advise, if possible, carefully pick your parents.

@Joseph Tham

Yes, of course. We should speak out against injustice.

Abrar Hossain Tasin Could you kindly explain why and how it is unjust? Shukran

Hi! this can be one of the factors. However the socio-economic status of the family, the surrounding environment etc. can be other factors that might need to be considered to analyse on how inequality created in the society. The factors could be categorised into mico and macro level as well. Thanks

@Joseph Tham Because it creates racism in society and Inequality has led the world to different kinds of wars. So, as human beings, we need to stay away from discrimination that's why we should blame our parents for contributing to inequality in society.

To some extent, I would say yes! Traits gained from other family dynamics and environmental factors may also lead to such inequality in society.

Abrar Hossain Tasin I am not so comfortable in blaming my parents for what they encouraged me to do..... let me think. you are very tough on your parents.

Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak Even if we agree that parents are partially responsible, it is not clear what society can do with respect to this issue.

Everybody is responsible! It all starts with family and extends to the local community and society. Building up ethical standards that are authentic and acceptable helps overcome and reject inequality. Morals of justice, equality, and equity should be taught generation after generation since early childhood.

Integrating morals of justice, equality, and equity in our children everyday lives and activities of daily living through providing good models and demonstrations at family and school would definetly help create a society free of negative destructive behaviors ans actions such as inequality.

Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak I am simply training my children to be competitive so that they are successful in life. You think that i should not do it? not so clear.

Dear Joseph Tham,

How do You think to solve this problem? What are reasonable ways?

It is reasonable to blame them but that how the society is and their parents taught them it was the only way to survive. Changing such a mindset even in future is difficult.

Arvydas Guogis Let me answer in general terms. First, i am not sure it is a problem. Parents should have the right to raise their kids in the way that they wish. Second, even if society thinks that it is a problem, it is not clear what policies would work, without compromising other competing values. I think it is important to try to prioritize the social problems, and this would probably not be in my top ten list. Society should try to broadly equalize opportunities and hopefully this leads to an equitable (not necessarily egalitarian) society. you probably find my answer unsatisfactory but these are my thoughts. Your comments are most welcome and we can continue the conversation.

Inequalities in society have ancient roots. The world has always gone through serious inequalities, from slavery to underestimation of women. Of course the education received in the family can count for a lot, but many other sources of inequality live in society, from school, to the world of work.

Dear Joseph Tham,

Parents have to care about their children as usual, but if there appear laggards, who do not - who form social inequality, so the states with their social administration measures have to interfere, and to diminish the inequality between stratas. Those, caring about their children are o'kay, but for the rest the socialdemocratic redistributive institutional model has to help. Do You know other alternative, dear Joseph?

Arvydas Guogis Thank you for your response. May i clarify. What is your definition of "laggards" in society?

Dear Joseph Tham,

Very simply, for example, those children, who get low marks at the exams - because of not studying, or become "socially supportive" (as they are called so in Lithuania).

Arvydas Guogis Thank you for the clarification. A couple of comments. First, when i think of public support for disadvantaged households and family, i would to have it means-tested. That is, not everyone gets the public support. The problem is sometimes there is a stigma about getting such public support. Not sure about your country. So in my case, i would only provide support for "laggards" from low-income households. i could use a range of measures to identify laggards, but the issue of stigma is VERY difficult to overcome. A lot of laggards may not wish to receive such support even if it were offered.

kindly tell me how you identify the laggards in your country.

Dylan Dustin van Rosenveldt

Dear Joseph Tham,

Look, please, to the https://www.mokslobaze.lt/the-social-assistance-system-in-lithuania-social-support-financing-features-and-analysis.html

And, in addition, there are so called "asocial families", which get social support (social assistance),

Dear Joseph Tham,

I strongly recommend to You this article about "asocial families" (social risk families):

https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2018/12/shsconf_shw2016_03001.pdf

I agree with the idea, but I don't think it would do any good if we blamed our parents. Competition surely creates a gap of inequality, but it most certainly cannot be avoided.

I think its absurd to blame parents.

Absolutely, but it is possible that the father does not achieve equality between his children, and it contributes to the lack of equality within society, because the family is the nucleus of building society.

I think so. Children are profoundly influenced by parental values. But, if most of the parents are competitive and instill this value in their children, from where does the disparity come from?

Yes because it's the parents giving introduction to children about the world they have entered which cast, religion what to follow what not to follow and the child grows in that environment as shown to him

Hi Joseph,

Yes, parents influence children growing and also perspective around society. But parents solely cannot be blamed for, other important segments growing up such as grandparents and their traditional views or the neighborhood and friends the child is raised contributes to his personality. Parents can bring great change by teaching their kids with morals which help them to recognize which is right and wrong. I believe what a kid learns during his first 10 years of life makes him man for the future with the power of right judgment.

Never. You have to blame the system

Ravishankar Suryanarayana What is the system? The system consists of the elements and members of the system, namely, parents, schools, teachers and other important institutions in society. Simply saying "blame the system" does not allow us to think about solution. What exactly do you mean by the system? please clarify.

I will not blame parents for inequality in society but surely I think that parents play a critical role in moulding their kids towards equality in society. they can do this by role modelling, sharing such stories and reinforcing desired behaviours.

Raman Deep Suppose the parents really want the kids to succeed in society, and instill in them the values of competition. Then what? Would you be critical of such parents?

Joseph Than, What I would suggest that parents can instill value of Competition in a good spirit also without bias and prejudices. It can be a healthy competition.

This is a very interesting question, though we cannot solely place the burden of inequality onto parents alone. They do however play a very critical role in the early development of their offsprings. We also cannot ignore other influences that shape a child which include the environment and cultural setting, aspects parents cannot control. Basically they are a myriad of factors that contribute to inequality, pinpointing the problem (though it forms part of it) cannot be pinned to parents and their desired parenting styles. It is a societal problem, a systematic one at that. Which requires a collaborated effort from all spheres of society to correct.

Blaming of parents is not reasonable, fighting against inequality afterwards is reasonable.

Suppose we try to construct a theory about the determinants of inequality.

the outcome measure is inequality (we need to agree on some acceptable measure of inequality). Then we need to identify the determinants or causes of this inequality. The most likely suspects are the following: parents, close relatives, neighbors, community members, teachers. plus things like quality of school, wealth, education, health and so on. Sure there are many other causes. Then it is an OPEN empirical question. which of these groups of people is the STRONGEST cause of inequality. i suspect that parents would be the strongest. So it seems that people are unwilling to blame parents even if we can show with empirical evidence that they are the main determinant of inequality. we can of course discuss ALL of the determinants, and then decide from society's perspective how to intervene.

Joseph Tham You say: " i suspect that parents would be the strongest. So it seems that people are unwilling to blame parents even if we can show with empirical evidence that they are the main determinant of inequality. "

You suspect that parents are the strongest cause of inequality, and you it seems to you that people are unwilling to blame parents. What are the grounds for your claims?

And, more generally: What kinds of results would you expect from blaming parents?

Anna Klassen Let me briefly provide some additional context. I think inequality exists, but it must be assessed in the context of just inequality versus unjust inequality. i cannot simply conflate inequality with injustice. Second, to construct a general theory of inequality is very difficult. so it is more of a thought experiment. the desire to reduce inequality conflicts with other important values. i do not know the empirical evidence on this, but to the extent that we are guided by such empirical research, it is a starting point for a discussion.

As much as parents are the first source of information a child gathers , they can't only be blamed for inequality. Religious beliefs, policies and prevalent cultural paradym also play major roles. So i will say societal inequality is a combination of different aspect of societal life.

Nimisingha S. Deinkuro Fully agree. it is a tough tough problem. There are so many determinants of inequality. it is not clear that we can even rank the different causes. And second, even if were able to do so, some of our policy options would be constrained by other values that we find important. i wish to simply illustrate the idea that dealing with inequality is tough, and requires some serious thinking about the causes and possible interventions.

@Josef Tham, With the knowledge of social stratification, there might have been a conscious or an unconscious built-in mindset resulting from the effect of their immediate environment (whether rich, middle or poor class). This stands as an important factor too.

Parents can also be blamed on the bases of their knowledge of the society, with conscious efforts of some parents, the society is painted just the way they want their children to see it (not applicable to all parents).

You can't put all the blames on parents, because of other determining factors.

Thank you.

Joseph Tham Without doubt it is, who else raises the children? I wonder, however, why “inequality” has such a bad reputation nowadays. As you mention before, inequality is not the same as injustice. The discussion may become more difficult if we differentiate between high-income countries, middle-income countries etc.

Andreas Hoffmann i would like to make a distinction between inequality and injustice but it is a VERY controversial and difficult distinction for people to agree on. how about in your country? would people accept and agree with this distinction? On RG most people do not make this distinction and i am trying to understand the reasons why. people simply assume that inequality means injustice.

Joseph Tham Unfortunately, in Germany and Austria the situation is quite similar, and I think this starts before people start their scientific career. The schools, the mainstream media and the “everybody knows that”-fallacy all simplify things to inequality = injustice. Furthermore, this equation is used by politicians to support their ideologies. Just one example: You may know the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The only way to “squeeze“ the most complex things into beautiful graphics and catchy phrases is simplification! And people love simple truths, don’t they?

Parents lead and teach by example. So do other family members: brothers, sisters, grandparents...

Being a parent is great responsability that it does not ends with food, home and school. Families with many children will tend to teach equality between equals (sons and sisters) on a dayly basis because it has meany incentives to do so in a long relationship (game theory, repeted games, etc) as a family relationship is.

Parents should be prepared to fulfill, in the best possible way, the parenting responsibility. Preparation begins in school, church and engagement period.

Dear Joseph Tham , it is totally irrational to blame parents for inequality in society, as they never contribute to inequality in society.

The most eminent contributor to social inequity is the diamond-water paradox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value

The price of a person's labour is not determined by its real value, but by the rareness. More often than not, hard work does not lead to higher pay. So everyone is struggling to be an expert, so that his work is rare and get higher pay with less work.

This diamond-water paradox is the ultimate governor of any society, and no one or organisation can do any thing to change it.

I think parents have the strongest influence on their children while growing up. If parents can set boundaries and take extra effort to explain the reasons to the children, the world will be a better place.

It is unreasonable for parents to bear everything that happens in society