Intergenerational Mobility in Socio-emotional Skills

Orazio Attanasio, Alessandro Toppeta and Aureo de Paula

No 15254, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

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. Additionally, by leveraging the BCS70 data on socio-emotional skills for three generations, we estimate multi-generational persistence. Notably, we find a correlation between the grandmother's internalising skill and the grandchildren's skills, even 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: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Intergenerational mobility in socio-emotional skills (2025)
Working Paper: Intergenerational mobility in socio-emotional skills (2025)
Working Paper: Intergenerational mobility in socio-emotional skills (2024)
Working Paper: Intergenerational Mobility in Socio-emotional Skills (2020)
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