We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey to estimate the extent of intergenerational economic mobility in a framework that highlights the role played by assortative mating. We find that assortative mating plays an important role. On average about 40-50 percent of the covariance between parents’ and own permanent family income can be attributed to the person to whom one is married. This effect is driven by strong spouse correlations in human capital.
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Paper provided by DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research in its series Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin with number
448.
Length: 30 p. Date of creation: 2004 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in: The Economic Journal 116 (2006), 513, S. 659-679 Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp448
Find related papers by JEL classification: J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994.
"X. Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (3rd Edition), pages 257-298
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
Mette Ejrnæs & Astrid Kunze, 2004.
"Wage Dips and Drops around First Birth,"
CAM Working Papers
2004-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
[Downloadable!]
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