Intergenerational Income Mobility in Urban China

Honge Gong (), Andrew Leigh and Xin Meng ()

No 4811, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper estimates the intergenerational income elasticity for urban China, paying careful attention to the potential biases induced by income fluctuations and life cycle effects. Our preferred estimates are that the intergenerational income elasticities are 0.74 for father-son, 0.84 for father-daughter, 0.33 for mother-son, and 0.47 for mother-daughter. This suggests that while China has experienced rapid growth of absolute incomes, the relative position of children in the distribution is largely determined by their parents’ incomes. Investigating possible causal channels, we find that parental education, occupation, and Communist Party membership all play important roles in transmitting economic status from parents to children.

Keywords: political party membership; transgenerational persistence; intergenerational mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Published - published in: Review of Income and Wealth, 2012, 58 (3), 481-503

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Related works:
Journal Article: INTERGENERATIONAL INCOME MOBILITY IN URBAN CHINA (2012)
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