Mobility, Sorting and Inequality with Extended Kinship Data

Objective

Recent research suggests that socioeconomic differences between families are more persistent, and possibly much more persistent, than previously thought. Motivated by these findings, my research program aims to develop a conceptual and empirical framework of intergenerational transmission that allows us to understand the persistence of socioeconomic status over different time horizons, the contribution of spousal sorting to this persistence, and the implications for socioeconomic inequality. The program consists of three related research objectives: Objective I is to develop a unified theoretical framework that integrates traditional mobility measures, such as parent-child and sibling correlations, but also newer approaches, including multigenerational and name-based measures. This framework will clarify how these measures should be interpreted and relate, and provide a more robust understanding of intergenerational and assortative processes than previous work. Objective II is to exploit administrative registers and other population-wide data sources to construct extended kinship networks. By chain-linking across sibling and spousal links, my approach provides many more empirical moments than previous work, which allow me to develop, test, and implement the theoretical framework. Objective III is to apply this methodology and data to explore substantive questions of interest, such as the effect of spousal sorting on economic inequality, the persistence of these inequalities in the very long term, the degree to which this persistence depends on skill transmission from parents to children, or the extent to which norms and attitudes are passed down within families, among other questions. Overall, the program promises to bridge disparate strands of the literature, and to advance our understanding of intergenerational processes and their broader societal implications beyond what has been feasible so far.