INTERGENERATIONAL INCOME MOBILITY IN SWEDEN: WHAT DO TAX‐DATA SHOW?

The aim of this paper is to investigate intergenerational income mobility in Sweden by means of a representative sample drawn from tax-data files. Longitudinal data on actual parent-child pairs spanning 1978–92 are employed. Regression and correlation coefficients are analyzed and transition matrices calculated in order to investigate income mobility over generations. The results achieved show high intergenerational income mobility in Sweden between fathers and sons in comparison to estimations performed in most other countries and more especially compared to the U.S. This indicates that Sweden does not only have lower cross-sectional income inequality, but also higher intergenerational income mobility than those countries. The mother's earnings influence children's earnings less than the father's. However, the mother's earnings correlate more strongly with a daughter's earnings than they do with that of a son. The major indication of immobility across generations is found in the upper income deciles.     

Multigenerational Mobility Among Males in India

Most studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility in India, using a nationally representative data set the India Human Development Survey that contains information about education and occupation for three generations. We find that mobility has increased over generations for education, but not for occupation. We also find that there are stark differences across social groups, with individuals belonging to socially disadvantaged communities lagging behind in social progress. Multigenerational mobility for Muslims in education and occupation has decreased in comparison to Hindus over the three generations. While we find that there is an increase in educational mobility for other disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes compared to General Castes, we do not find evidence of increased occupational mobility over the three generations.     

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.     

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.     

What a Difference Immigration Policy Makes: A Comparison of PISA Scores in Europe and Traditional Countries of Immigration

Abstract. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the importance of different immigration policies associated with corresponding migration backgrounds, command of national languages and intergenerational mobility, for the PISA school performance of teenagers living in European countries (France, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom and Sweden) and traditional countries of immigration (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US). Econometric results show that the influence of the socioeconomic background of parents differs strongly across nations, with the highest impact found for Germany, the UK and US, whereas intergenerational transmission of educational attainment is less likely in Scandinavian countries and in Canada. Moreover, for all countries our estimations imply that for students with a migration background a key for catching up is the language spoken at home. We conclude that educational policy should focus on integration of immigrant children in schools and preschools, with particular emphasis on language skills at the early stage of childhood.     

Intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in Austria

Up to now, there exist several studies documenting the educational expansion in Austria in the 20th century but only few studies measureing the degree of persistence of educational attainment over generations. Furthermore, for Austria there are no internationally comparable persistence-measures of educational attainment available. This study aims to fill this gap and delivers key-measures for intergenerational persistence of educational attainment. The Austrian Household Survey on Housing Wealth includes information on socioeconomic characteristics of respondents and their parents. The results demonstrate strong persistence in educational attainment in Austria. Using uni- as well as multivariate econometric techniques and a Markovian approach we show that educational persistence decreased over time. Overall, Austria ranks third in terms of intergenerational educational attainment persistence among a number of european countries and the US. Our results therefore allow to question the significance of meritocratic values and equal opportunity for educational advancement in the Austrian society compared to other European countries and the USA.     

The impact of higher education expansion on intergenerational mobility

The persistent correlations between parents and children's outcomes have long been investigated. From a policy perspective, it is important to understand the underlying causes of those correlations. Educational policy changes may have significant impacts on intergenerational mobility. The last several decades have witnessed a remarkable expansion of higher education around the world. In this paper, we examine the effect of higher education expansion on intergenerational mobility in China. We find that the higher education expansion in China has weakened the advantage of cadres’ children in higher education participation, and has strengthened the intergenerational educational correlation. One explanation for these results might be that, along with the process of economic reform started in 1979, the cadre selection mechanism has placed more and more weight on candidate's education and abilities.     

Where is the Land of Hope and Glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales*

We present a new analysis of intergenerational mobility across three cohorts in England and Wales using linked decennial census microdata, focusing on occupation, homeownership, and education. Four main results emerge. First, area-level differences in upward occupational mobility are highly persistent over time. Second, measures of absolute and relative mobility tend to be spatially positively correlated. Third, there is a robust relationship between upward educational and upward occupational mobility. Last, there is a small negative relationship between upward homeownership mobility and upward occupational mobility, revealing that social mobility comparisons based on different outcomes can have different trends.     

Understanding the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from a Quasi‐natural Experiment in China

This paper exploits the closure of senior secondary schools in urban China from 1966 to 1971 in order to identify the causal intergenerational transmission effects of education. The paper uses the instrumental variable approach to examine the intergenerational causality of educational transmission at the senior secondary schooling level in urban China. The exogenous variation in parental senior secondary educational attainment both over time and across regions allows us account for selection bias and thus identify the causal intergenerational transmission effect in education. We further show that our conclusion is robust to alternative identification strategies and data sets.     

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.     

A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the U.S

Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross‐country comparison of Germany and the U.S., reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than in the U.S. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the U.S. However, based on highly comparable data, even a reasonable degree of variation in the sampling rules leads to similar estimates in both countries. I find no evidence for non‐linearities along the fathers' earnings distribution. In contrast, the analysis shows that mobility is higher for the sons at the lowest quartile of the sons' earnings distribution in both countries. In Germany this result is mainly driven by a high downward mobility of sons with fathers in the upper middle part of the earnings distribution. The corresponding pattern is clearly less pronounced in the U.S.     

劳动力自由迁移为何如此重要?——基于代际收入流动的视角

未考虑人口迁移影响的代际收入弹性估计存在偏误。本文将人口迁移与区域特性纳入代际收入弹性估计方程,并运用迁移概率作为局部工具变量进行估计,发现迁移者的代际收入弹性不到未迁移者的一半。而当前我国代际收入流动的主要问题在于部分人群面临"代际低收入传承陷阱",他们可以通过迁移从而增加就业机会等方式摆脱这一陷阱,这至少可以使一代人免受代际低收入传承的困扰。进一步分析迁移对代际收入传递路径的影响,结果表明教育在可识别的代际收入传递路径中贡献最大,而迁移强化了这一影响。鉴于人口迁移对代际收入流动的重要影响,政府部门有必要进一步采取措施降低劳动力自由迁移的障碍,并合理分配教育资源,以增进社会公平程度。     

Inequality and mobility

Acknowledging that wage inequality and intergenerational mobility are strongly interrelated, this paper presents a model in which both are jointly determined. The model enables us to study how inequality and mobility are affected by exogenous changes and what determines their correlation. A main implication of the model is that differences in the amount of public subsidies to education and educational quality produce cross-country patterns with a negative correlation between inequality and mobility. Differences in the labor market, like differences in skill-biased technology or wage compression instead produce a positive correlation. The predictions of the model are found to be consistent with various empirical observations on mobility and inequality.     

Catching up? The educational mobility of migrants’ and natives’ children in Europe

Migrants into European countries are often less educated than European natives. We analyse whether migrants’ children are more or less likely than natives’ children to achieve upward educational mobility across generations, and study differences in the factors, which contribute to differences in mobility for the two groups. We find that migrants’ descendants are more often upwardly mobile (and less often downwardly mobile) than their native peers in the majority of countries studied, and show that the main factor contributing to these patterns is the education level of parents. Although a lower parental education means that their children are less likely to access the same amount of human, social and financial capital as children of more highly educated parents, migrants’ descendants over the last two generations were able to make significant progress in reducing education gaps with natives.     

家庭借贷约束、公共教育支出与社会流动性

人力资本投资是增强社会流动性的重要手段,然而借贷约束使得底层家庭无力对子女进行最优的人力资本投资;与此同时,富裕家庭则不受借贷约束的影响,总体结果是社会流动性减弱。利用中国健康与养老追踪调查和全国综合社会调查数据,本文发现,借贷约束确实提高了居民收入和教育的代际传递弹性,降低了社会流动性。在匹配政府公共教育支出数据后发现,公共教育支出可以缓解家庭层面人力资本投资的不足,提高教育水平的代际流动性。     

Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Hong Kong: Are Immigrants More Mobile than Natives?

We characterize intergenerational educational mobility by the percentage of children who have more schooling than their parents, and the change in the relative probability of the children attending university across their parents’ schooling levels. In Hong Kong, immigrant children are very upward mobile; their percentage of upward mobility has caught up with that of the children of the Hong Kong‐born parents. Hong Kong‐born children of immigrant parents are also more mobile than the children of Hong Kong born parents. Even though parental educational background remains important for university attendance, immigrant children experience higher mobility than Hong Kong‐born children in terms of access to university education.     

代际流动约束下生育率与收入不平等关系的国际检验

收入不平等问题和人口生育率过低问题是当下中国面临的两大难题,但目前理论界关于人口因素与收入不平等关系的研究,很少从生育率视角来考察以及考虑代际收入流动在其中的作用.文章从理论与经验两个方面来考察生育率对收入不平等的影响,理论模型表明:在关于代际收入流动的假设下,一个经济体中生育率的提高会使穷人比重提高,进而拉大收入不平等.进一步地,文章利用1970-2011年76个国家(地区)面板数据的经验研究发现:(1)总和生育率的提高会拉大收入不平等,如果每个妇女平均多生育一个孩子,将会使基尼系数增加0.025;(2)以出生率作为总和生育率替代指标的实证结果与基准结果基本一致,这说明不同生育率测算指标高度相关且可相互替代;(3)对于代际收入流动弹性越高、收入水平越低或生育率越高的国家(地区),其生育率提高对收入不平等的拉大作用越大.文章关于生育率对收入不平等影响的作用机制和异质性特征的考察,对于我国如何在实施"全面二孩"政策下寻求应对严峻的收入分配问题之策提供了国际经验和启示.     

教育融资体制对代际流动性与不平等程度的动态影响：基于OL G模型的分析

传统的代际流动性研究并没有对代际流动性的短期值和长期值作有效区分,也未考虑人力资本形成中的不确定性,因而“代际流动性越高则不平等程度越低”这一分析结论并未在中国的现实中呈现。文章据此通过构建一个代际交叠模型比较分析了公共教育体制和市场教育体制下的代际流动性。模型动态分析发现：(1)公共教育体制下的不平等程度的长期值比市场教育体制下更低。(2)代际流动性短期值的升高并不总是伴随着不平等程度的下降,当社会受到某种剧烈冲击时可能发生两者同升同降的情况。(3)政府进行激进式的教育体制改革会使人力资本收敛速率发生跃升,并且使不平等程度的短期值和长期值都增大,而代际流动性则会在突降后在逐渐收敛到新的更低的稳态值。(4)人力资本积累不确定性参数值反映了个体不可观测的技能或先天禀赋,是影响代际流动性和不平等程度的重要因素。不确定性的突然上升会使不平等程度的短期值迅速上升,并且会使不平等程度的长期值达到新的高位,虽然代际流动性短期值也会迅速上升,但依旧会逐渐收敛到以前的稳态值不变。文章的研究有益于厘清代际流动性与不平等程度的复杂关系,也能为相关实证研究提供参考。     

ETHNIC AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY: A STUDY OF 26-YEAR-OLDS IN THE USA

This paper uses the traditional income framework and a non‐monetary framework to estimate intergenerational mobility in economic status for a sample of 26‐year‐old whites, blacks and Hispanics in the USA using data from the first and fifth sweeps of the National Educational Longitudinal Study (1988 and 2000). Intergenerational income mobility is found to be greater for males than for females, although there are differences between whites, blacks and Hispanics. Transition probabilities indicate that Hispanics are the most upwardly mobile in terms of educational attainment and occupational status. Ordered logits are used to estimate the impact of parental education and occupation on educational and occupational outcomes.     

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.