Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility
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In this article, the authors discuss the underlying drivers of opportunity that generate the relationship between inequality and intergenerational mobility, and explain why America differs from other countries, how intergeneration mobility will change in an era of higher inequality, and how the process is different for the top 1 percent.Abstract:
My focus is on the degree to which increasing inequality in the high-income countries, particularly in the United States, is likely to limit economic mobility for the next generation of young adults. I discuss the underlying drivers of opportunity that generate the relationship between inequality and intergenerational mobility. The goal is to explain why America differs from other countries, how intergenerational mobility will change in an era of higher inequality, and how the process is different for the top 1 percent. I begin by presenting evidence that countries with more inequality at one point in time also experience less earnings mobility across the generations, a relationship that has been called “The Great Gatsby Curve.” The interaction between families, labor markets, and public policies all structure a child's opportunities and determine the extent to which adult earnings are related to family background—but they do so in different ways across national contexts. Both cross-country compa...read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States*
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use administrative records on the incomes of more than 40 million children and their parents to describe three features of intergenerational mobility in the United States: the joint distribution of parent and child income at the national level, the conditional expectation of child income given parent income, and the factors correlated with upward mobility.
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Democracy in America: An Appreciation On the Occasion of the Centennial of Tocqueville's Death
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TL;DR: More recently, Tocqueville as mentioned in this paper argued that "nothing has changed and nothing has changed since Democracy in America was published in the 1830's" and that "everything has changed with each exposure to it".
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Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the “other 99 percent”
TL;DR: The central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality is documented, why skill demands have persistently risen in industrialized countries is discussed, and the economic value of inequality is considered alongside its potential social costs.
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Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality : A Global Perspective
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Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility
TL;DR: This article measured intergenerational mobility based on the correlation between parent and child income percentile ranks and calculated transition probabilities, such as a child's chances of reaching the top quintile of the income distribution starting from the bottom quintile.
References
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Book
Human capital and the rise and fall of families
Gary S. Becker,Nigel Tomes +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a model of the transmission of earnings, assets, and consumption from parents to descendants is developed, assuming utility-maximizing parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children.
Journal ArticleDOI
An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility
Gary S. Becker,Nigel Tomes +1 more
TL;DR: The theory of inequality and intergenerational mobility presented in this paper assumes that each family maximizes a utility function spanning several generations, which depends on the consumption of parents and on the quantity and quality of their children.
Posted Content
Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States
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The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations
TL;DR: Duncan et al. as discussed by the authors examined whether and how the relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years and found that the achievement gap between children from high and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier.
Journal ArticleDOI
Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition
TL;DR: It is argued that the trends associated with the second demographic transition are following two trajectories and leading to greater disparities in children’s resources and that the government can do more to close the gap between rich and poor children.