Intergenerational Networks, Unemployment, and Persistent Inequality in South Africa

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Magruder, Jeremy R.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.2.1.62
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 62-85
• 关键词: employment; pensions; poverty; income; panel

摘要

This paper examines the importance of network-based intergenerational correlations in South Africa. I use longitudinal data on young South Africans to examine the covariance of children's employment with the usefulness of parents in their job search. I find that fathers serve as useful network connections to their sons (not daughters), and that mothers do not seem to be useful network connections. The father-son effect is robust to alternate explanations of specific human capital and correlated networks. The size of this effect is large. Present fathers' utility as network connections may be responsible for a one-third increase in their sons' employment rates.