Intergenerational income mobility: access to top jobs, the low-pay no-pay cycle and the role of education in a common framework

Paul Gregg, Lindsey Macmillan () and Claudia Vittori

Journal of Population Economics, 2019, vol. 32, issue 2, No 5, 528 pages

Abstract: Abstract Studies of intergenerational mobility have typically focused on estimating the average persistence across generations. Here, we use the relatively new unconditional quantile regression technique to consider how intergenerational persistence varies across the distribution of sons’ earnings. We find a J-shaped relationship between parental income and sons’ earnings, with parental income a strong predictor of labour market success for those at the bottom, and to an even greater extent, the top of the earnings distribution. We explore the role early skills, education and early labour market attachment in shaping this pattern for the first time. Worryingly, we find that the association with childhood parental income dominating that of a high level of education at the top of the distribution of earnings. In this sense, education is not as meritocratic as we might hope, as those with the same detailed educational attainment still see a strong association between their earnings and their parental income. Early labour market spells out of work have lasting effects on those at the bottom, alongside parental income.

Keywords: Intergenerational mobility; Children; Education; Nonlinear estimation; Quantile regression; J13; J62; I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-018-0722-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:jopoec:v:32:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s00148-018-0722-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-018-0722-z

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().