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Parental Education and Sons’ Earnings: A “Beyond the Mean†Approach along the Sons’ Earnings Distributions

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Abstract

This paper offers evidence on the parental education and sons’ earn-ings relationship by analyzing the father and mother educationgradientacross the full distribution of sons’ earnings. It uses an unconditionalquantile approach based on recentered influence function regressions andapplies an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition at various quantiles of the earn-ing distribution to explain time, gender and geographical differentials inearnings. Using six waves of the Survey of Income and Wealth (from2004to 2014) for Italy, I find evidence of higher returns to family education inthe upper percentiles of the distribution of son’s earnings with the prob-ability of ending up in high deciles being significantly correlated with theeducation level of the father. Results show an important heterogeneity inthe association of parental education as well as of individual covariates tosons’ earnings across time, gender and geographical areas of the countrywhich varies significantly along the earning distribution and accounts fora substantial percentage of the differentials in observed earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • Zotti, Roberto, 2020. "Parental Education and Sons’ Earnings: A “Beyond the Mean†Approach along the Sons’ Earnings Distributions," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202013, University of Turin.
    • Handle: RePEc:uto:dipeco:202013
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