Opportunities Hoarded, Opportunities Lost

Opportunities Hoarded, Opportunities Lost

You’ve heard of hoarders, right? People who cannot part with any of their possessions right down to rubber bands and dryer lint. Hoarders treasures are lost amid piles of old newspapers and buckets of tattered shoes. What are they thinking?

In one way or another, we are all hoarders. Human beings like to hold onto what they have. One of the first words a two-year-old holds up against the world is, “Mine!” We unclench our fists ever so slowly. Most learn to take turns and to share possessions. We share our time, abilities, and knowledge. But there is one thing many of us hoard without even being aware of it — opportunity.

Opportunity hoarding “concerns the control of resources… that allow certain groups to exclude others from access to … resources or benefits accruing to them.” As defined in 1998 by Charles Tilly, a social and political scientist, opportunity hoarding is a social inequality system that allows certain groups to withhold opportunity from others, denying them social and economic mobility. Opportunity hoarders keep others from climbing the ladder to better lives by filling the rungs themselves.

Every parent wants their child to have a better life than they did, to have access to good schools, good neighborhoods, and chances for enrichment. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the job of parents to prepare their children to succeed. Parents do all that they can to move their children up the ladder. But that ladder is crowded. Some children can’t find places on the rungs.

Children whose parents stand higher on the social or economic ladder get boosted up to pass children whose parents, however, earnest and hard-working, stand lower. Many social structures favor children whose parents have more.

Teams and clubs require fees and parents who can provide equipment, transportation, snacks, and time. Legacy students snag places at the best colleges. Unpaid internships are filled by those who don’t need to hold paying jobs. Tutors charge fees. Libraries, churches, and museums move into the suburbs. Better schools are located in wealthier neighborhoods populated by those with better incomes. Opportunity hoarding magnifies social and economic inequalities. 

In simple words, the children whose parents have better academic, social, health, or economic status have access to more opportunities than children whose parents have not had them. Richard Reeves, an economist at the Brookings Institute, calls this the “perpetuation of advantage.” Those who have advantages keep them. Those who don’t can’t get them. Those who start at the bottom of the ladder cannot pass those filling the top rungs.

How can those at the top make room? Advocate for equal access to health care, affordable housing, good schools for every child, and a living wage for every parent. Support public transit systems, inner-city and rural community projects, and libraries. Vote for leaders who work to end social, racial, and economic inequalities. 

Teach your children to make room on the ladder. Sometimes they may have to step aside to let others take a turn at the top. Helping others pulls us all up. Opportunity hoarding leads to opportunities lost. Opportunity sharing yields treasure for all.