The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data

Anders Bjorklund, Mikael Lindahl and Erik Plug ()

No 1739, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use unique Swedish data to estimate intergenerational associations between adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents. We argue that the impact from biological parents captures broad pre-birth factors, including genes and prenatal environment, and the impact from adoptive parents represents broad post-birth factors, such as childhood environment, for the intergenerational association in education and income. We find that both pre- and post-birth factors contribute to intergenerational transmissions, and that pre-birth factors are more important for mother's education and less important for father's income. We also find some evidence for a positive interaction effect between post-birth environment and pre-birth factors.

Keywords: adoption data; nature and nurture; income; intergenerational mobility; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J30 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2005-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Published - published in: Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006, 121 (3), 999-1028

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Journal Article: The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data (2006)
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