IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/0539.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Occupational Choice and Incentives: The Role of Family Background

Author

Listed:

Abstract

A model of occupational choice and human capital investment is developed and tested. The model allows family background to influence occupational choice via access to economic resources, differences in costs of schooling, and ability uncertainty. The model predicts that people are more sensitive to economic incentives when considering occupations that are different from the parental occupation. It also predicts that the occupational choice of individuals from poor background is more sensitive to economic incentives than the occupational choice of well off individuals. These implications are confirmed on Swedish data using a mixed multinomial logit framework, explicitly accounting for unobserved heterogeneity.

Suggested Citation

  • Sjögren, Anna, 2000. "Occupational Choice and Incentives: The Role of Family Background," Working Paper Series 539, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://swopec.hhs.se/iuiwop/papers/iuiwop0539.pdf
    File Function: Complete Rendering
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brownstone, David & Train, Kenneth, 1998. "Forecasting new product penetration with flexible substitution patterns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1-2), pages 109-129, November.
    2. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    4. Mattila, J. Peter & Orazem, Peter, 1991. "Human Capital, Uncertain Wage Distributions, and Educational and Occupational Choices," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10841, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Willis, Robert J., 1987. "Wage determinants: A survey and reinterpretation of human capital earnings functions," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 525-602, Elsevier.
    6. Solon, Gary, 1999. "Intergenerational mobility in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 29, pages 1761-1800, Elsevier.
    7. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Galton versus the Human Capital Approach to Inheritance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 184-224, December.
    8. Robertson, Donald & Symons, James, 1990. "The Occupational Choice of British Children," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 828-841, September.
    9. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:525-602 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Orazem, Peter F & Mattila, J Peter, 1991. "Human Capital, Uncertain Wage Distributions, and Occupational and Educational Choices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(1), pages 103-122, February.
    12. Boskin, Michael J, 1974. "A Conditional Logit Model of Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 389-398, Part I, M.
    13. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    14. Bjorklund, Anders & Jantti, Markus, 1997. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Sweden Compared to the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1009-1018, December.
    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. Haupt, Alexander, 2012. "The evolution of public spending on higher education in a democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 557-573.
    2. Eliasson, Kent, 2006. "The Effects of Accessibility to University Education on Enrollment Decisions, Geographical Mobility, and Social Recruitment," Umeå Economic Studies 690, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    3. Emran, M. Shabe & Otsuka, Misuzu & Shilpi, Forhad, 2003. "Gender, generations, and nonfarm participation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3087, The World Bank.

    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. Sjögren, Anna, 2000. "Redistribution, Occupational Choice and Intergenerational Mobility: Does Wage Equality Nail the Cobbler to His Last?," Working Paper Series 538, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Sjögren, Anna, 1998. "The Effects of Redistribution on Occupational Choice and Intergenerational Mobility: Does Wage Equality Nail the Cobbler to His Last?," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 239, Stockholm School of Economics.
    3. Arnaud Lefranc & Alain Trannoy, 2005. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in France: Is France more mobile than the U.S.?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 78, pages 57-77.
    4. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    5. Ramses H. ABUL NAGA, 1998. "Estimating the Intergenerational Correlation of Incomes : An Errors in Variables Framework," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 9812, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    6. Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2004. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1354-1378, December.
    7. María Cervini-Plá, 2013. "Exploring the Sources of Earnings Transmission in Spain," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 204(1), pages 45-66, March.
    8. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    9. Valentino Dardanoni & Mario Fiorini & Antonio Forcina, 2012. "Stochastic monotonicity in intergenerational mobility tables," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 85-107, January.
    10. Güell, Maia & Rodríguez Mora, José V & Telmer, Chris, 2007. "Intergenerational Mobility and the Informative Content of Surnames," CEPR Discussion Papers 6316, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Andrés Erosa & Tatyana Koreshkova & Diego Restuccia, 2010. "How Important Is Human Capital? A Quantitative Theory Assessment of World Income Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1421-1449.
    12. Emran, M. Shabe & Otsuka, Misuzu & Shilpi, Forhad, 2003. "Gender, generations, and nonfarm participation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3087, The World Bank.
    13. Schildberg-Hoerisch, Hannah, 2011. "Does parental employment affect children's educational attainment?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1456-1467.
    14. Holmlund, Helena & Lindahl, Mikael & Plug, Erik, 2010. "The Causal Eff ect of Parent’s Schooling on Children’s Schooling," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2010:8, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    15. Hu, Yuan & Behrman, Jere R. & Zhang, Junsen, 2021. "The causal effects of parents’ schooling on children's schooling in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 258-276.
    16. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2016. "Heterogeneous Income Profiles and Lifecycle Bias in Intergenerational Mobility Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 239-268.
    17. Corak, Miles & Piraino, Patrizio, 2010. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility and the Inheritance of Employers," IZA Discussion Papers 4876, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. John Ermisch & Marco Francesconi & Thomas Siedler, 2004. "Intergenerational Economic Mobility and Assortative Mating," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 448, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. David Card & Ciprian Domnisoru & Lowell Taylor, 2022. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden Age of Upward Mobility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(S1), pages 39-95.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic incentives; Family background; Intergenerational mobility; Mixed multinomial logit; Occupational choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    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:hhs:iuiwop:0539. 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: Elisabeth Gustafsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iuiiise.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.