Equality of Opportunity

The American Dream – the aspiration that all children should have opportunities to climb the economic ladder – is at risk. In the 1950s, more than 90% of American children grew up to earn more than their parents did. Today, only 50% of children do so. 

The mission of the Equality of Opportunity Project (EOP) -- a joint initiative of faculty at Stanford, Harvard, and Brown universities -- is to revive the American dream. We seek to develop scalable policy solutions that will empower families to rise out of poverty and achieve better life outcomes. We do this by harnessing the power of big data through high quality research to learn from areas where the American Dream is still thriving. We study economic mobility through lenses such as education, neighborhood environments, and health to understand the drivers of economic opportunity in the country and give local policy-makers customized data and insights to help them craft effective policy solutions. (You can hear an overview of our work on this Freakonomics podcast.)

The project’s work to date has shaped policy discussions at the national and local level, with nearly a dozen of its studies covered on the front pages of major media outlets, such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and cited in congressional testimony and the President’s State of the Union addresses. This work has led to direct impacts on a broad range of decisions by local policy makers, ranging from school districts to housing authorities. 

Our team, led by MacArthur “genius” award winner Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Nathan Hendren, consists of leaders from academia, policy, and management, supported by a staff of approximately 40 members who share a passion to revive the American Dream. We are now seeking a Director of Policy Partnerships who will serve on the senior leadership team of the Equality of Opportunity Project (EOP) and oversee the strategic engagement of all major partnerships between EOP and state/local government agencies. They will partner closely with the Director – Policy Research to delivery high quality policy consulting based on EOPs research