Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in Japan among Sons and Daughters: Levels and Trends

Arnaud Lefranc, Fumiaki Ojima () and Takashi Yoshida ()
Additional contact information
Fumiaki Ojima: Doshisha University
Takashi Yoshida: Shizuoka University

No 7045, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper estimates the extent of intergenerational income mobility in Japan among sons and daughters born between 1935 and 1975. Our estimates rely on a two-sample instrumental variables approach using representative data from the Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) surveys, collected between 1965 and 2005. Father's income is predicted on the basis of a rich set of variables including education, occupation and job characteristics and we discuss changes in the Japanese earnings structure for cohorts born between the early 1900s and the 1960s. Our main results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) for both sons and daughters, in Japan lies around .35, which is an intermediate value, by international standards. We discuss the sensitivity of the IGE to using either personal or family income as the income variable for both fathers and children and perform some robustness analysis with respect to the first-step specification and to the age selection rule for children. We also examine changes across cohorts in the IGE. Results indicate that intergenerational mobility has been roughly stable over the last decades. Lastly, we estimate the intergenerational correlation of earnings.

Keywords: trends; inequality; income; earnings differentials; correlation; elasticity; intergenerational mobility; Japan; assortative mating; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D3 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of Population Economics, 2014, 27 (1), 91-134

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7045.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends (2014)
Working Paper: Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends * (2014)
Working Paper: Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7045

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().