The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility After 1980

Jonathan Davis and Bhashkar Mazumder

No WP-2017-5, Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Abstract: We demonstrate that intergenerational mobility declined sharply for cohorts born between 1957 and 1964 compared to those born between 1942 and 1953. The former entered the labor market largely after the large rise in inequality that occurred around 1980 while the latter entered the labor market before this inflection point. We show that the rank-rank slope rose from 0.27 to 0.4 and the IGE rose from 0.35 to 0.51. The share of children whose income exceeds that of their parents fell by about 3 percentage points. These findings suggest that relative mobility fell by substantially more than absolute mobility.

Keywords: Intergenerational mobility; income; labor markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E2 J61 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 73 pages
Date: 2017-03-16, Revised 2022-01-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility After 1980 (2020)
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