IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amsocr/v88y2023i4p600-626.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Patterns and Trends in Income Mobility through Multiverse Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Per Engzell
  • Carina Mood

Abstract

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. Yet, research on trends in intergenerational income mobility finds conflicting results. To better understand this variation, we adopt a multiverse approach that estimates trends over 82,944 different definitions of income mobility, varying how and for whom income is measured. Our analysis draws on comprehensive register data for Swedish cohorts born 1958 to 1977 and their parents. We find that income mobility has declined, but for reasons neglected by previous research: improved gender equality in the labor market raises intergenerational persistence in women’s earnings and the household incomes of both men and women. Dominant theories that focus on childhood investments have blinded researchers to this development. Methodologically, we show how multiverse analysis can be used with abduction—inference to the best explanation—to improve theory-building in social science.

Suggested Citation

  • Per Engzell & Carina Mood, 2023. "Understanding Patterns and Trends in Income Mobility through Multiverse Analysis," American Sociological Review, , vol. 88(4), pages 600-626, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amsocr:v:88:y:2023:i:4:p:600-626
    DOI: 10.1177/00031224231180607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00031224231180607
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00031224231180607?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amsocr:v:88:y:2023:i:4:p:600-626. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.