Economic mobility is not just about schools and family, it's about community connections.

I'm David Brancaccio. Who you know matters a lot and that's true for kids as well a new study from

researchers at Harvard's Opportunity Insights and the US Census Bureau finds that

children have a better chance at moving up the economic ladder if most of the adults with whom they interact are

employed not just in the household but beyond. Marketplace's Samantha Fields reports.

We've long known that where you grow up has a huge influence on your life, economically and otherwise.

Turns out who you're around does too.

If you're growing up in a community where parents of your own race and class group are working at lower rates,

that seems to have an adverse impact on your outcomes in adulthood.

Benny Goldman is an assistant professor at Cornell who worked on the study and he says on the flip side

children who move young to areas where folks in their own social community tend to be working at

high rates tend to do better as adults.

If most of your friends and classmates parents are employed,

that makes a big difference.

It kind of goes against our sense of individual autonomy.

Like if I work hard and do the right things, I'm going to do well.

Stephen Brown is with the Aspen Institute's Financial Security Program.

It's not just all about you and your family.

It's about neighborhoods, it's about networks. And it's about class.

Raj Chetti, a professor at Harvard and one of the researchers, says that race is less important than it once was to kids' prospects for upward mobility.

But... While race is becoming less important... to kids prospects for upward mobility, but...

While race is becoming less important,

...