Intracohort Income Status Maintenance: An Analysis of the Later Life Course

This paper examines the extent to which an individual's income status position relative to others in one's own cohort is maintained over the later life course. Changes in the income status of individuals are estimated within a synthetic cohort. Using a series of cross-sectional datafiles from about every fifth Survey of Consumer Finances starting in 1974, the findings show that individuals born between 1924 and 1928 with early life socio-economic status advantages, namely high education, improve their absolute and relative income status position vis-à-vis others in their own cohort with status disadvantages from ages 46 to 64. Over the ages of 65 to 74, the pattern of economic well-being of individuals with status advantages and disadvantages reflects an income status convergence. Because Canada's old-age public welfare state is relatively well-developed in terms of comprehensiveness and generosity, it does a good job at countering the effects of status background characteristics on the distribution of income in old age; that is, it substantially weakens the relationship between education and income as individuals enter old age. In absence of these programs (i.e. up to age 64), the relative position of those with high education and other advantaged groups is strengthened.