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Understanding Patterns and Trends in Income Mobility through Multiverse Analysis

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  • 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
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Pilar Gonalons-Pons & Christine R. Schwartz, 2017. "Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 985-1005, June.
    2. Jan Jonsson & Carina Mood & Erik Bihagen, 2016. "Poverty trends during two recessions and two recoveries: lessons from Sweden 1991–2013," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Helena Holmlund, 2022. "How Much Does Marital Sorting Contribute to Intergenerational Socioeconomic Persistence?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(2), pages 372-399.
    4. Jan O. Jonsson & Carina Mood & Erik Bihagen, 2016. "Poverty trends during two recessions and two recoveries: lessons from Sweden 1991–2013," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-20, December.
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    2. Nordrum, Erlend, 2025. "Bits of Opportunity: Broadband Internet and Intergenerational Income Mobility," SocArXiv 6kpn8_v1, Center for Open Science.
    3. Zachary Parolin & Rafael Pintro-Schmitt & Gøsta Esping-Andersen & Peter Fallesen, 2025. "Intergenerational persistence of poverty in five high-income countries," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(2), pages 254-267, February.
    4. Daniel Valdenegro & Jiani Yan & Duiyi Dai & Charles Rahal, 2025. "RobustiPy: An efficient next generation multiversal library with model selection, averaging, resampling, and explainable artificial intelligence," Papers 2506.19958, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.

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