On the Importance of Finnishing School: Half a Century of Inter-generational Economic Mobility in Finland

Sari Pekkala Kerr and Robert Lucas

No 359, Discussion Papers from VATT Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: Trends in inter-generational economic mobility in Finland are analyzed using panel data from 1950 through 1999 on more than 200 thousand sons and daughters born between 1930 and 1970. A significant decline is estimated in the inter-generational transmission elasticity from the 1930 birth cohort until the baby boom cohorts of the early 1950s. After that we observe no increase in the extent of mobility for the 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts. The quite dramatic transformation of the Finnish economy in the second half of the twentieth century is outlined in the paper. A decomposition of the intergenerational transmission elasticities across cohorts shows that most of the decline in transmission reflected a reduction in the impact of family income on duration of children's education accompanied by a decline in the returns to schooling. Despite the large volume of rural - urban migration during this period of transformation, regional mobility played only a minor role in increasing economic mobility.

Keywords: Inter-generational mobility, cohorts, education, migration, Economic growth, Taloudellinen kasvu, Labor market and policies promoting economic growth, Työmarkkinat ja kasvua tukeva politiikka, J620 - Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion, (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: On the Importance of Finnishing School: Half a Century of Inter-Generational Economic Mobility in Finland (2004)
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