Marital Sorting, Household Labor Supply, and Intergenerational Earnings Mobility across Countries

Oddbjørn Raaum, Bernt Bratsberg (), Knut Røed (), Eva Österbacka (), Tor Eriksson, Markus Jantti and Robin Naylor ()
Additional contact information
Eva Österbacka: Abo Akademi University

No 3037, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We present comparable evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility for Denmark, Finland, Norway, the UK and the US, with a focus on the role of gender and marital status. We confirm that earnings mobility in the Nordic countries is typically greater than in the US and in the UK, but find that, in contrast to all other groups, for married women mobility is approximately uniform across countries when estimates are based on women's own earnings. Defining offspring outcomes in terms of family earnings, on the other hand, leads to estimates of intergenerational mobility in the Nordic countries which exceed those for the US and the UK for both men and women, single and married. Unlike in the Nordic countries, we find that married women with children and with husbands from affluent backgrounds tend to exhibit reduced labor supply in the US and the UK. In these countries, it is the combination of assortative mating and labor supply responses which weakens the association between married women's own earnings and their parents' earnings.

Keywords: joint labor supply; intergenerational mobility; assortative mating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2007-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Published - published in: B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy: Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy, 2007, 7 (2), Article 7

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Journal Article: Marital Sorting, Household Labor Supply, and Intergenerational Earnings Mobility across Countries (2008)
Working Paper: Marital Sorting, Household Labor Supply, and Intergenerational Earnings Mobility across Countries (2007)
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