Making sense of sibling economic gaps: racialized meritocratic frames, economic inequalities, and family relationships

We look at how economically divergent siblings in the United States make sense of their economic gaps, highlighting family relationships as an arena in which economic inequalities are experienced and negotiated. Drawing on over sixty in-depth interviews with a racially diverse sample of predominantly middle-class persons who report themselves to be in better economic circumstances than their sibling(s), we examine “sibling difference stories,” or siblings’ explanatory accounts of their economic divergence. We analyze the integration of cultural discourses of inequality into these stories. Siblings deploy a meritocracy discourse of individual responsibility in conjunction with other cultural frames to make sense of economic gaps. These include “Born that Way,” emphasizing inherent differences of ability, and “Birth Order,” about how siblings of different ages experience family life differently due to their age-based location in family structure and history. The “Institutional Failures” frame, prevalent among racial minority siblings, points to the failure of social institutions and policies to provide needed supports to the sibling lagging in achievement. Black, Latino/a, and biracial informants further situate institutional failures within systemic racism. Our study’s relational approach draws attention to the role of intimacy and emotion in how people make sense of inequality.