IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-03-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The growing importance of family and community: an analysis of changes in the sibling correlation in earnings

Author

Listed:
  • David I. Levine
  • Bhashkar Mazumder

Abstract

This study presents evidence that the correlation in brothers? earnings has risen in recent decades. We use two distinct cohorts of young men from the National Longitudinal Surveys and estimate that the correlation in earnings between brothers rose from 0.26 to 0.45. This suggests that family and community influences shared by siblings have become increasingly important in determining economic outcomes. We find that neither the correlation in years of schooling nor the rising return to schooling accounts for this increase. We also argue that the PSID is not an appropriate dataset for analyzing changes over time because of its sampling design, small sample of siblings, and high attrition rate.

Suggested Citation

  • David I. Levine & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2003. "The growing importance of family and community: an analysis of changes in the sibling correlation in earnings," Working Paper Series WP-03-24, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-03-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2003/wp2003-24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susan E. Mayer & Leonard M. Lopoo, 2005. "Has the Intergenerational Transmission of Economic Status Changed?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    2. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2001. "Earnings mobility in the US: a new look at intergenerational inequality," Working Paper Series WP-01-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Markus Jäntti & Eva Österbacka & Oddbjörn Raaum & Tor Eriksson & Anders Björklund, 2002. "Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 757-772.
    4. Levy, Frank & Murnane, Richard J, 1992. "U.S. Earnings Levels and Earnings Inequality: A Review of Recent Trends and Proposed Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1333-1381, September.
    5. Joseph G. Altonji & Thomas A. Dunn, 1991. "Relationships Among the Family Incomes and Labor Market Outcomes of Relatives," NBER Working Papers 3724, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Levine, D.I., 1999. "Choosing the Right Parents: Changes in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality Between the 1970s and the Early 1990s," Papers 72, California Berkeley - Institute of Industrial Relations.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2007. "Family Background, Race, and Labor Market Inequality," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 609(1), pages 134-152, January.
    2. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2005. "Gender, Body Mass and Economic Status," NBER Working Papers 11343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2005. "Sibling Similarity and Difference in Socioeconomic Status: Life Course and Family Resource Effects," NBER Working Papers 11320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jaehyun Nam, 2021. "Does Economic Inequality Constrain Intergenerational Economic Mobility? The Association Between Income Inequality During Childhood and Intergenerational Income Persistence in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 469-488, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    2. Angela R. Fertig, 2004. "Is Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Affected by Divorce?," Working Papers 953, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    3. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Levine, D.I., 1999. "Choosing the Right Parents: Changes in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality Between the 1970s and the Early 1990s," Papers 72, California Berkeley - Institute of Industrial Relations.
    5. repec:pri:crcwel:wp02-04-fertig is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Miles Corak, 2006. "Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a Cross-Country Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Dynamics of Inequality and Poverty, pages 143-188, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Arnaud Lefranc & Fumiaki Ojima & Takashi Yoshida, 2014. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 91-134, January.
    8. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2007. "Family Background, Race, and Labor Market Inequality," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 609(1), pages 134-152, January.
    9. Christopher B. Barrett, 2005. "Rural poverty dynamics: development policy implications," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 45-60, January.
    10. Levine, David I. & Jellema, Jon R., 2005. "Growth, Industrialization, and the Intergenerational Correlation of Advantage," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt2q74s1tg, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    11. Maia Güell & José V. Rodriguez Mora & Chris Telmer, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and the informative content of surnames," Economics Working Papers 1042, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    12. Johnson Rucker C., 2012. "Health Dynamics and the Evolution of Health Inequality over the Life Course: The Importance of Neighborhood and Family Background," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-69, January.
    13. Dalton Conley & Rebecca Glauber, 2005. "Sibling Similarity and Difference in Socioeconomic Status: Life Course and Family Resource Effects," NBER Working Papers 11320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jantti, Markus & Bratsberg, Bernt & Roed, Knut & Raaum, Oddbjorn & Naylor, Robin & Osterbacka, Eva & Bjorklund, Anders & Eriksson, Tor, 2005. "American exceptionalism in a new light: a comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the United States," Economic Research Papers 269752, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. Barrett, Christopher B., 2003. "The Economics Of Poverty And The Poverty Of Economics: A Christian Perspective," Working Papers 14747, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    16. Blanden, Jo & Goodman, Alissa & Gregg, Paul & Machin, Stephen, 2002. "Changes in intergenerational mobility in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19507, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Harding, David J. & Jencks, Christopher & Lopoo, Leonard M. & Mayer, Susan E., 2003. "The Changing Effect of Family Background on the Incomes of American Adults," Working Paper Series rwp03-045, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    18. John Hassler & José Rodríguez Mora & Joseph Zeira, 2007. "Inequality and mobility," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 235-259, September.
    19. Robert Lucas & Sari Kerr, 2013. "Intergenerational income immobility in Finland: contrasting roles for parental earnings and family income," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1057-1094, July.
    20. Florencia Torche, 2015. "Analyses of Intergenerational Mobility," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 37-62, January.
    21. Shuanglong Li & Yunsong Chen & Guangye He, 2019. "Mapping Public Concerns About Class Immobility in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 745-765, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income; Education;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedhwp:wp-03-24. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    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.