Income Mobility Across Generations
If you were born into a poor family in denmark it would take at least two generations to reach the median income or three in sweden finland and norway.
Income mobility across generations. In absolute terms people around the world in average are living better today than yesterday. In some low income or fragile african countries only 12 percent of today s young adults those born in the 1980s have more education than their parents. Estimates of intergenerational mobility covering 148 economies for cohorts between 1940 and 1989. This translates to a world population coverage of 96 percent.
Many view college as a pathway to upward income mobility but if children from higher income families attend better colleges on average the higher education system as a whole may not promote mobility and could even amplify the persistence of income across generations. For example assuming constant relative social mobility levels in these countries it would take six generations to reach median income in france in comparison to just two in denmark or three in sweden finland and norway. A response to a rising demand for cross country comparable data on intergenerational mobility a means to a richer intergenerational analysis of economic mobility. The answer varies dramatically depending on where that person lives.
Across generations found significant upward absolute mobility from the late 1960s to 2007 with two thirds of those who were children in 1968 reporting more household income than their parents although most of this growth in total family income can be attributed to the increasing number of women who work since male earnings have stayed relatively stable throughout this time. Beyond just inheritable traits which affect income intergenerational mobility embeds factors such as parents input to education both pecuniary and nonpecuniary residential choice which affects public school quality and crime social connections and income from inherited wealth. As technological advancements and globalization increase so does income levels and the conditions in which people live in. In south africa or brazil the number of generations necessary to reach median income jumps to nine generations.
But in denmark it would only take two generations while the average across oecd countries is 4 5 generations. The second type of mobility we consider intergenerational mobility concerns how likely it is for a household s children to move out of their parents income quintile. Relative mobility looks at the mobility of a person in comparison to the mobility of others in the same cohort or. Income mobility across generations research also shows that countries with high levels of relative social mobility such as finland norway or denmark exhibit lower levels of income inequality.
Economic mobility across generations around the world shows that africa and south asia the regions with most of the world s poorest people have the average lowest mobility. In france it would take six generations and nine in brazil or south africa.