Intergenerational mobility in socio-emotional skills

Orazio P. Attanasio, Áureo de Paula and Alessandro Toppeta

Journal of Public Economics, 2025, vol. 248, issue C

Abstract: This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of socio-emotional skills during childhood, using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) in the United Kingdom. This dataset enables us to measure two dimensions of socio-emotional development: internalising and externalising skills. More importantly, we can use multiple measures of parents’ skills collected during both their childhood and their adulthood. Whereas parent–child skills are strongly related when both are measured contemporaneously, they remain correlated when both are measured in childhood, with a stronger transmission observed from mothers to their children. The BCS70 data finally enable us to estimate the correlation between the grandmother’s internalising skill and the grandchildren’s skills, after accounting for parental skills.

Keywords: Intergenerational mobility; Inequality; Socio-emotional skills; Spectral gap mobility index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I21 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:248:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725001215

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105423

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