Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in Norway: Levels and Trends*

Using longitudinal data for Norwegian children born in 1950, 1955, 1960 and 1965, we find a relatively high degree of earnings mobility. There is no tendency toward decreasing mobility over the cohorts. Conditioning on the position in the earnings distribution, the analysis indicates quite high mobility in the middle of the distribution and somewhat more persistence at the top and bottom. This approach also reveals increased mobility over time for sons, but a less clear picture for daughters.     

Ordinal Variables and the Measurement of Upward and Downward Intergenerational Educational Mobility in European Countries

This article proposes a new approach to the measurement of intergenerational mobility in education. Borrowing the concept of inequality-sensitive and additive achievement measure axiomatically developed by Apouey et al., we derive new indices of upward, downward, and total mobility, using a “movement approach.” It turns out that the Prais-Bibby and Bartholomew mobility indices are particular cases of the mobility indices we introduce. We then present an empirical illustration based on the 2016 European Social Survey. Particular attention is given to within country differences between fathers to children and mothers to children educational mobility. When comparing two countries, we also make a distinction between gross and net mobility, the latter referring to the case where country differences in the educational structure of parents and children are neutralized.     

Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility in Spain

This paper contributes to the large number of studies on intergenerational earnings and income mobility by providing new evidence for Spain. Since there are no Spanish surveys covering long‐term information on both children and their fathers' income or earnings, we deal with this selection problem using the two‐sample two‐stage least squares estimator. We find that intergenerational mobility in Spain is similar to that in France, lower than in the Nordic countries and Britain, and higher than in Italy and the United States. Furthermore, we use the Chadwick and Solon approach to explore intergenerational mobility in the case of daughters and we find similar results by gender.     

代际间的职业流动与收入流动——来自中国城乡家庭的经验研究

本文通过对中国城乡家庭代际间的职业流动与收入流动进行实证研究,得出以下结论:(1)城镇家庭子女的职业随其职业生涯的发展有向父辈职业"回归"的趋势,而农村家庭中父代从事非农职业有助于子女实现职业的向上流动。(2)子女受教育程度的提高有利于代际间职业的向上流动,但其父辈的社会经济特征也对代际间的职业传承和流动有显著的影响。(3)代际之间职业的传承在一定程度上阻碍了代际间的收入流动,代际职业传承对高收入家庭的代际收入弹性影响更强。     

Public Education and Intergenerational Economic Mobility

This paper examines the role of public education in determining intergenerational economic mobility. It considers a model in which education is free and admission to schools is competitive. The results indicate that for mobility to increase during the process of development, the share of resources devoted to public education needs to be large enough to offset the relative advantage of having educated parents in academic attainment.     

中国劳动力市场代际收入流动研究

代际收入流动反映了一个社会的机会平等程度,主要衡量指标是代际收入弹性.由于测量误差和生命周期偏误,同类研究对中国代际收入弹性的估计结果差异较大.基于营养与健康调查的代际数据,笔者纠正了测量误差后得到的代际收入弹性约为0.46,这表明中国的代际收入流动性在国际上处于中间水平.     

Intergenerational Mobility and the Process of Development

This paper offers an explanation for some evidence that intergenerational earnings mobility is higher in more developed economies and that mobility is positively correlated with wage equality. In the model mobility promotes economic growth via its effect on the accumulation and allocation of human capital. Growth influences mobility via its effect on incentives to acquire education and its effect on liquidity constraints upon such acquisition. In the process of development mobility increases and the distribution of education becomes better correlated with ability. Redistributive policy has a negative effect on growth in developed economies and a positive effect in developing economies.     

中国农村非农就业机会的代际流动

分别对不同年份的CHNS数据进行分析的结果表明,上世纪90年代中国农村非农就业机会的代际相关性有减弱的趋势。然而固定效应模型表明,这种相关关系有一部分是由家庭的不变特征决定的;工作机会在一定程度上也通过人力资本的投资来传递。消除固定效应后,户主对于子女的影响依然显著;多数结果表明,1997年和2000年的代际相关性要高于较早的年份。本文还分析了社区就业水平和外出打工对于代际流动以及非农就业机会的影响,并考察了单位所有制以及职业类型的代际流动。     

Tuition Fees for Higher Education and Intergenerational Mobility in China

This paper studies the impact of an increase in higher education tuition on intergenerational mobility in China. We develop a theoretical model for the parental decision about the investment on education of children to illustrate the impact from the perspective of borrowing constraint. We consider the Chinese college tuition and subsidy reform around 1986 as a quasi-natural experiment for identifying the policy effect of the reform on intergenerational educational mobility by using the data from the census of 2000 and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). We find that an increase in the education burden induced by the reform of college tuition has reduced intergenerational educational mobility, and it is more noticeable in regions with a relatively higher increment in the tuition fee. Our results are robust with consideration of the co-residence bias, government investment in elementary education, and the higher education expansion.     

Intergenerational Mobility Research: Current Challenges and Future Directions

This article discusses major challenges facing intergenerational mobility research in three main domains: (1) the (dis)connection between theory and empirical applications; (2) data gaps; and (3) measurement concerns. In doing so, it highlights theoretical and empirical extensions to better describe, explain and predict complex intergenerational transmission processes in the light of new and rapid administrative data linkages, more mature survey data and other forms of big data. The article concludes with future directions for research.     

Intergenerational Mobility under Private vs. Public Education*

Intergenerational earnings mobility is analyzed in a model where human capital is produced using schooling and parental time. In steady states more mobile societies have less inequality, but in the short run higher mobility may result from an increase in inequality. Starting from the same inequality, mobility is higher under public than under private education. A rise in income shocks, for example due to increased returns to ability, or a switch from public to private schooling both increase inequality. However, increased shocks raise mobility in the short run and do not affect it in the long run, whereas an increased role for private schooling reduces mobility in both the short and long run. That these differences may help to identify the source of changes in inequality, and other real‐world implications, are illustrated in a brief discussion of time trends and cross‐country differences.     

The Sins of the Fathers: Intergenerational Income Mobility in China

This paper aims to obtain an accurate estimate of China's intergenerational income mobility and to present evidence on its distributional pattern. Using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) over the period 1989–2009, I find that China is less mobile than most developed countries. Then, I employ five different approaches to investigate the distributional pattern of China's intergenerational mobility across income levels. The results suggest that poor families have relatively high mobility, indicating opportunities for the poor children to escape poverty. Finally, I show that while wealthy fathers are likely to pass on their favorable economic status to their sons, rich sons come from a very wide range of family economic backgrounds.     

子女教育、代际支持与家庭贫困的变动

子女教育是影响农村家庭贫困变动的一个重要因素。通过对14省区609户农村家庭调查结果的分析,子女接受教育程度越高,自身一代家庭摆脱贫困的比例越高,并且能传承下代家庭使其免受贫困;家庭贫困代际变动的断裂点为15年(大专教育)。     

基于面板数据的代际收入流动研究

基于中国健康和营养调查中的农村数据,在面板数据条件下使用滞后水平变量作为工具变量分别对代际收入流动的单方程和系统方程进行估计,发现特定时期的单方程估计结果受工具变量的选取影响较大,而系统估计所得的代际收入弹性为0.446.这说明父辈收入与子辈收入之间存在较强相关性,代际收入流动性较弱,收入财富呈现出一定的代际继承性.因此,在减少收入分配差距的同时,政府应着重增加公共资源的供给,提供更多的职业培训,从而为农村子女发展创造更多的机会,以增加代际间的流动性.     

Human Capital, Heterogeneity and Estimated Degrees of Intergenerational Mobility

We study the parental investment model of intergenerational mobility, where heterogeneity in 'innate' earnings ability and parents' altruism rate is explicitly modelled. We show that heterogeneity increases the difficulty of detecting the existence of borrowing constrained families. Conversely, the presence of heterogeneity means that economic and linear statistical models of inheritance generate similar intergenerational data on consumption and earnings. We also suggest that nay cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings mobility are more readily interpreted according to the heterogeneity of inherited ability, rather than optimal family responses to country-specific institutions for accumulating human capital.     

代际流动性趋势及其分解:增长、排序与离散效应

本文以两个相互独立的具有全国代表性的微观家庭调查数据库为数据基础,在采用多重估计方法对流动性趋势进行估计的基础上,引入流动性分解方法对代际流动性趋势的构成进行分解。估计结果显示,我国代际流动性呈现的倒U型趋势,在城镇人口和农村人口中都同时存在;约20世纪60年代前出生的子代,代际教育流动性呈现上升趋势,对于在60年代中期后出生的一代人,其代际教育流动性呈现下降趋势。对代际流动性趋势构成的分解结果显示我国的代际流动,主要来源于增长效应,即由社会阶层分布在时间维度上的变化所引起的流动,是社会总量发展的结果;排序效应所引起的流动性水平次之;离散流动对总体流动性贡献不大。增长效应的变化趋势是总体代际流动性变化趋势的主导因素;将增长效应从总体流动中剔除后,代际流动性的变化趋势变得较为平稳。     

Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in France, 19th and 20th Century

This paper examines intergenerational wealth mobility between fathers and children in France between 1848 and 1960. Considering wealth mobility in the long run requires taking into account not only positional mobility (that is, how families move within a given distribution of wealth), but also structural mobility induced by changes in the distribution of wealth. Such changes are related to two structural phenomena: in the nineteenth century, the rising number of individuals leaving no estate at death and, after World War I, the decline in the number of the very rich who could live off their wealth. The paper studies the movements between these groups and estimates the intergenerational elasticity of wealth, taking into account the persistence at the bottom and at the top.     

Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Revisited: Estimates Based on Lifetime Earnings*

Using Norwegian intergenerational data, which include a substantial part of the life‐cycle earnings for children and almost the entire life‐cycle earnings for their fathers, we present new estimates of intergenerational mobility. Extending the length of fathers’ earnings window from 5 to 25 years increases estimated elasticities. Increasing the age at which fathers’ earnings are observed has the opposite effect. Biases in the estimated elasticities are related to both transitory earnings variation and life‐cycle measurement error; the former appear to be more important than the latter. Estimation bias stemming from persistence in transitory innovations plays only a minor role. Our findings indicate that intergenerational earnings mobility in Norway might have been strongly overstated in many earlier studies with shorter earnings histories. Some of our new estimates are twice as large as earlier estimates.     

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants exhibit high intergenerational mobility and no less opportunity than natives to achieve high schooling degrees. These findings suggest a rejection of the failed assimilation hypothesis. Additionally, we evaluate different patterns by time of arrival, Italian region of origin and language spoken at home.