Skills, parental sorting, and child inequality

Martin Nybom, Erik Plug (), Bas van der Klaauw and Lennart Ziegler ()
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Erik Plug: University of Amsterdam, Postal: University of Amsterdam
Lennart Ziegler: University of Vienna, Postal: University of Vienna

No 2023:12, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: This paper formulates a simple skill and education model to illustrate how better access to higher education can lead to stronger assortative mating on skills of parents and more polarized skill and earnings distributions of children. Swedish data show that in the second half of the 20th century more skilled students increasingly enrolled in college and ended up with more skilled partners and more skilled children. Exploiting college expansions, we find that better college access increases both skill sorting in couples and skill and earnings inequality among their children. All findings support the notion that increased skill inequality contributes to rising earnings inequality.

Keywords: Assortative mating; intergenerational mobility; education; earnings inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J11 J12 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2023-05-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Related works:
Working Paper: Skills, Parental Sorting, and Child Inequality (2023)
Working Paper: Skills, Parental Sorting, and Child Inequality (2022)
Working Paper: Skills, Parental Sorting, and Child Inequality (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_012

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