The association between fathers’ characteristics and children’s earnings in Italy: does only education matter?

Francesco Bloise and Michele Raitano

Argomenti, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: This work analyses mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of inequality in Italy by exploiting the waves from 2000 to 2016 of the Bank of Italy’s Survey on Household Income and Wealth. Using fathers’ education as a proxy of parental background, we show that 1-year increase in fathers’ education is associated with a 3.6% increase in children’s earnings. Contrary to the widespread idea that the intergenerational transmission is only related to parents’ investment in their children’s education, large background-related advantages (+1.8% for each year of parental education) persist when we control for children’s education and other observables related to their human capital. Moreover, background-related advantages remain large and statistically significant (+1.1%) when we also control for children’s occupation. Furthermore, we find that our measure of intergenerational association has not declined.

Keywords: intergenerational inequality; parental background; earnings; education; unobservable skills; social networks. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 J24 J31 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:urb:journl:v:10:y:2018:p:1-20

DOI: 10.14276/1971-8357.1516

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