Last week we wrote about a sweeping new study of income inequality, which followed 20 million children in the United States and showed how their adult incomes varied by race and gender. The research was based on data about virtually all Americans now in their late 30s.

This first animated chart illustrates one of the study’s main findings: White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way, while black boys raised in similarly wealthy households are more likely to fall to the bottom than stay at the top in their own adult households.

Black and white boys raised in wealthy families

Follow the lives of these Americans and see where they end up as adults: Replay ↺

In the days since that article was published, we’ve heard from many readers eager to know more – about women, about other racial groups and about the differences between individual income and household income. The charts below make several such comparisons, and at the bottom of this page, we’ve created a tool that lets you make these animations for virtually any combination of race, gender, income type and household income level. If you’re an American born between 1978 and 1983, you are most likely reflected in this data (most of us at The Times who worked on this project are, too).

Black and white girls raised in poor families, as measured by individual income

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Black and white women raised in families with comparable incomes earn more similar amounts as individuals in adulthood. Previous research has suggested that black women may work longer hours than white women to compensate for the fact that they’re more likely to be the sole earner in a family. But — contrary to that idea — this data found that black and white women from similar backgrounds in this age group worked a similar number of hours per week, and made about the same amount of money per hour. They also had similar occupations.

Black and white girls raised in poor families, as measured by household income

Follow the lives of these Americans and see where they end up as adults: Replay ↺

Black women’s economic prospects are still different from white women’s, however. As individuals, black and white women who start from the same place have comparable incomes. But white women are significantly more likely to marry than black women are, and that means they’re also more likely to have a second income at home. The household incomes of white women, as a result, are higher on average.

Asian-American and white children raised in middle-class families, as measured by household income

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Both Asian-Americans and whites are likelier to move up the income ladder than down it. One reason Asian-Americans appear to have higher upward mobility rates than whites is that the children of Asian immigrants do particularly well in this data. If we look only at children whose mothers were born in the United States, Asian-Americans and whites fare about equally well.

Black and Hispanic children from all income groups, as measured by household income

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Both Hispanic and black Americans grow up to earn less than whites raised at the same income level. But Hispanics are on track to close that gap in several generations if mobility stays the same, while blacks are not. (The data included Americans born in the United States and authorized immigrants.)

White boys and white girls from all income groups

Follow the lives of these Americans and see where they end up as adults: Replay ↺

Another way to think about this data is that white men earn more than almost anyone else. They earn more than black men and they earn more than white women. Both gender and race contribute to inequality, and white men hold advantages in both ways. In this chart, which compares individual incomes, they fare better than white women, in part because men were about 10 percentage points more likely than women to be employed.

Create Your Own Mobility Animations

Pick any two demographic groups. You can sort by gender and by the income bracket in which children were raised. You can watch what happens to them as adult individuals, or in their adult households, in a variety of scenarios.