Uneven Pathway: An Inquiry Starting from a South Dakota Homestead
In the spring of 2024, I drove from Chicago to Seattle. It was a long trip that took me through states like Iowa and South Dakota, where the population density is much lower than in big cities. In some areas, people need to drive 15 minutes just to buy groceries. It is a lifestyle that I am not familiar with. And I am curious how people live in such places. I was staying at an Airbnb near Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The hosts lived in the only house within a ten-mile radius. During my stay, I heard many interesting stories. Their daughter, for example, was the only teacher at the only school in the nearest town. She had to teach math, English, and science all by herself. This made me notice how different education can be in rural areas, and it raised my interest in how local social structures shape people's lives. Over the following year, I did research on these questions. And that work eventually evolved into the paper Uneven Pathways: The Role of Social Capital in Educational Attainment and Intergenerational Mobility in Iowa's Rural and Urban Counties, which was accepted by the Pacific Sociology Association in 2025. This post provides a short overview of the study's main focus.
Intergenerational economic mobility, or the ability of people to move up the income ladder compared to their parents, is often assumed to depend mainly on education. But in studying Iowa, I found that another factor—social capital—plays an even more important role.
Social capital refers to the value we gain from our relationships and networks. In this study, I focused on three types: economic connectedness (how much people from different income levels interact), network clustering (how tight-knit a community is), and civic engagement (volunteering and local involvement).
What the Study Found
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Economic connectedness boosts mobility, but only after reaching a certain point. In counties with very low connectedness, there was no real improvement. But once this cross-class connection passed a certain level, it had a big positive effect on income mobility.
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Volunteering seems positive, but can signal economic hardship. Surprisingly, places with high volunteering rates also had lower mobility. This seemed confusing at first, but the effect disappeared once we controlled for unemployment. That means people may volunteer more when jobs are scarce, not because their communities are stronger.
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Education did not predict mobility as expected. Graduation rates and test scores like the ACT did not explain why some counties had higher mobility. This suggests that even with similar educational outcomes, the presence or absence of strong social and economic networks makes a much bigger difference.
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Rural counties outperformed urban ones. National trends suggest that rural areas are usually worse off, but in Iowa, some rural counties showed better income mobility than urban ones. These areas might benefit from more localized economic networks or family-based financial stability that are harder to capture with typical measures.
Why It Matters
These results challenge the idea that education alone is the key to economic success. They show that who you know and the kinds of networks you have access to can matter just as much, sometimes more.
For policymakers, this means investing in efforts to increase economic diversity within communities, especially in rural areas. Programs that connect young people with mentors, create job opportunities nearby, or expand access to broader professional networks could help improve mobility.
It also suggests that looking only at test scores or graduation rates gives us an incomplete picture. Education still matters, but it's not everything. Social capital and labor market stability are essential for ensuring that everyone has a fair shot at moving up.
Final Thoughts
Spending time in rural areas during my road trip gave me a new lens for understanding the importance of place. Behind the quiet roads and open landscapes are complex social structures that deeply affect opportunity. This research was an attempt to better understand that, and to imagine what policies might help build more equitable futures, wherever people call home.