Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the US and Britain, 1850-1911

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Long, Jason; Ferrie, Joseph
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12590
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: F422-F445
• 关键词: intergenerational mobility; UNITED-STATES; 19th-century britain; victorian britain; great-britain; INEQUALITY; earnings; income; transmission; persistence

摘要

Nearly all intergenerational mobility studies focus on fathers and sons. The possibility that the process is more than simply two-generational (AR(1)) has been difficult to assess because of the lack of the necessary multi-generational data. We remedy this shortcoming with new data that links grandfathers, fathers and sons in Britain and the US between 1850 and 1910. We find that grandfathers mattered: even controlling for father's occupation, grandfather's occupation significantly influenced the occupation of the grandson. For both Britain and the US in this time period, therefore, assessments based on two-generation estimates significantly overstate the true amount of social mobility.