Climbing the Ladder: The Intergenerational Mobility of Second-Generation Immigrants in France

Simone Moriconi, Mikaël Pasternak, Ahmed Tritah and Nadiya Ukrayinchuk

No 12196, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We provide new evidence on intergenerational social mobility among immigrants and natives in France. Using linked parent–child data from censuses, we introduce an individual-level metric - the Intergenerational Rank Difference (IRD) - that measures upward and downward mobility relative to the highest-ranked parent across both education and predicted income. We document a robust mobility premium for second-generation immigrants: on average, they achieve a predicted income rank six percentiles higher than observationally equivalent natives, with the advantage most pronounced among women, children of two immigrant parents, and those from disadvantaged households. Educational gains explain part of this differential, but labor-market advancement plays the larger role. Internal migration emerges as an important channel, as immigrant movers disproportionately relocate to high-mobility areas. Finally, a spatial analysis highlights substantial heterogeneity: some local areas act as “lands of opportunity,” while others are associated with stagnation or decline. These findings underscore the interplay of individual characteristics and local contexts in shaping long-run integration and suggest a role for place-aware policies to foster equality of opportunity.

Keywords: migration economics; intergenerational social mobility; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J15 J24 J62 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12196.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ces:ceswps:_12196

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().