IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v117y2020p251-258.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-term decline in intergenerational mobility in the United States since the 1850s

Author

Listed:
  • Xi Song

    (Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104)

  • Catherine G. Massey

    (Welch Consulting)

  • Karen A. Rolf

    (University of Nebraska at Omaha)

  • Joseph P. Ferrie

    (Northwestern University)

  • Jonathan L. Rothbaum

    (US Census Bureau)

  • Yu Xie

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

We make use of newly available data that include roughly 5 million linked household and population records from 1850 to 2015 to document long-term trends in intergenerational social mobility in the United States. Intergenerational mobility declined substantially over the past 150 y, but more slowly than previously thought. Intergenerational occupational rank–rank correlations increased from less than 0.17 to as high as 0.32, but most of this change occurred to Americans born before 1900. After controlling for the relatively high mobility of persons from farm origins, we find that intergenerational social mobility has been remarkably stable. In contrast with relative stability in rank-based measures of mobility, absolute mobility for the nonfarm population—the fraction of offspring whose occupational ranks are higher than those of their parents—increased for birth cohorts born prior to 1900 and has fallen for those born after 1940.

Suggested Citation

  • Xi Song & Catherine G. Massey & Karen A. Rolf & Joseph P. Ferrie & Jonathan L. Rothbaum & Yu Xie, 2020. "Long-term decline in intergenerational mobility in the United States since the 1850s," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(1), pages 251-258, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:251-258
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/117/1/251.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berger, Thor & Engzell, Per & Eriksson, Björn & Molinder, Jakob, 2023. "Social Mobility in Sweden before the Welfare State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 431-463, June.
    2. Zachary Ward, 2023. "Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3213-3248, December.
    3. Ursula A. Tooley & Aidan Latham & Jeanette K. Kenley & Dimitrios Alexopoulos & Tara A. Smyser & Ashley N. Nielsen & Lisa Gorham & Barbara B. Warner & Joshua S. Shimony & Jeffrey J. Neil & Joan L. Luby, 2024. "Prenatal environment is associated with the pace of cortical network development over the first three years of life," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Sharps, Daron L. & Anderson, Cameron, 2021. "Social class background, disjoint agency, and hiring decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 129-143.
    5. Pujadas-Mora, Joana-Maria & Brea-Martinez, Gabriel, 2020. "The increasing influence of siblings in social mobility. A long-term historical view (Barcelona area, 16th-19th centuries)," SocArXiv sf6vj, Center for Open Science.
    6. Ulrika Ahrsjö & René Karadakic & Joachim Kahr Rasmussen, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility Trends and the Changing Role of Female Labor," CEBI working paper series 21-19, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    7. Hwang, Sam Il Myoung & Squires, Munir, 2024. "Linked samples and measurement error in historical US census data," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:251-258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.