More inequality, less social mobility

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between inequality and intergenerational mobility. Proxying fathers' earnings with using detailed occupational data, we find that sons who grew up in countries that were more unequal in the 1970s were less likely to have experienced social mobility by the late-1990s.

Acknowledgements

We thank Christopher Jencks for valuable comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

¹ In 1991, almost all adults in West Germany, Britain and the United States, and a majority of adults in Japan, agreed with the statement ‘It's fair if people have more money and wealth, but only if there are equal opportunities.’ (Jencks and Tach, 2006).