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Intergenerational Health Mobility: Magnitudes and Importance of Schools and Place

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  • Jason Fletcher
  • Katie M. Jajtner

Abstract

Nascent research suggests intergenerational health mobility may be relatively high and non-genetic factors may make room for policy intervention. This project broadens this direction by considering heterogeneous intergenerational health mobility in spatial and contextual patterns. With 14,797 parent-child pairs from a school-based representative panel survey of adolescents (Add Health), this study finds large spatial variation in intergenerational health mobility in the United States. On average relative mobility in this sample is approximately 0.17 and expected health rank for children of parents at the 25th percentile of parent health is 47. These metrics however mask substantial spatial heterogeneity. In cases of low health mobility, rank-rank slopes can approach 0.5 or expected child health rank may only be the 34th percentile. Descriptive school- and contextual-level correlates of this spatial variation indicate localities with higher proportions of non-Hispanic blacks, school PTAs, or a school health education requirement may experience greater health mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason Fletcher & Katie M. Jajtner, 2019. "Intergenerational Health Mobility: Magnitudes and Importance of Schools and Place," NBER Working Papers 26442, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26442
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    Cited by:

    1. Bencsik, Panka & Halliday, Timothy J. & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2023. "The intergenerational transmission of mental and physical health in the United Kingdom," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Fletcher, Jason & Jajtner, Katie M., 2023. "Multidimensional intergenerational mobility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    3. Chang, Harrison & Halliday, Timothy J. & Lin, Ming-Jen & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2024. "Estimating intergenerational health transmission in Taiwan with administrative health records," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    4. Jiao Lu & Yang Yang & Yang Gao, 2024. "Research on the Spatial and Temporal Patterns and Formation Mechanisms of Intergenerational Health Mobility in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 709-740, July.
    5. Katie Jajtner & Matt Messel & Jason Fletcher, 2023. "Social Security Disability Insurance and intergenerational economic mobility," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(4), pages 575-593, October.
    6. Mikkel Høst Gandil, 2023. "Rank-correlations are not robust to differences in group inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(1), pages 201-217, March.
    7. Halliday, Timothy & Mazumder, Bhashkar & Wong, Ashley, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility in self-reported health status in the US," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. Carsten Andersen, 2021. "Intergenerational health mobility: Evidence from Danish registers," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3186-3202, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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