IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v108y2026i1p1-15.html

The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility after 1980

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan M. V. Davis

    (University of Oregon)

  • Bhashkar Mazumder

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)

Abstract

Relative intergenerational mobility declined for cohorts born around 1960 compared to those born around 1950. The former entered the labor market after the rise in inequality around 1980, while the latter entered the labor market earlier. We show that the rank-rank slope rose from 0.25 to 0.36 and the intergenerational elasticity increased from 0.28 to 0.45. These increases are more pronounced for men than for women. Increases in returns to schooling and in the gradient in the likelihood of marriage by parent income are contributors to increased intergenerational persistence.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan M. V. Davis & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2026. "The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility after 1980," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 108(1), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:108:y:2026:i:1:p:1-15
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01413
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01413?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Olivier Godechot, 2020. "The Great Separation: Top Earner Segregation at Work in High-Income Countries," Working Papers hal-03098791, HAL.
    3. Nathan Deutscher & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2023. "Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 988-1036, September.
    4. Chen, Chenxuan, 2025. "Fintech and absolute intergenerational mobility: Evidence from digital finance development in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1020-1032.
    5. George A. Erickcek, 2023. "What is Inclusionary Economic Development—What if Employees Mattered?," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 37(1), pages 27-33, February.
    6. Chris Belfield & Claire Crawford & Ellen Greaves & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2017. "Intergenerational income persistence within families," IFS Working Papers W17/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Olcina, Gonzalo & Calabuig, Vicente, 2021. "Trust and punishment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    8. Steven N. Durlauf & Ananth Seshadri, 2018. "Understanding the Great Gatsby Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 333-393.
    9. Yoosoon Chang & Steven N. Durlauf & Seunghee Lee & Joon Y. Park, 2023. "A Trajectories-Based Approach to Measuring Intergenerational Mobility," NBER Working Papers 31020, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Alberto Alesina & Sebastian Hohmann & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 1-35, January.
    11. Stephen Smith, 2018. "Development Economics Meets the Challenges of Lagging U.S. Areas: Applications to Education, Health and Nutrition, Behavior, and Infrastructure," Working Papers 2018-7, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    12. Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan & Steven N. Durlauf, 2022. "The Great Gatsby Curve," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 571-605, August.
    13. Brantly Callaway & Weige Huang, 2018. "Intergenerational Income Mobility: Counterfactual Distributions with a Continuous Treatment," DETU Working Papers 1801, Department of Economics, Temple University.
    14. Nizam MelikÅŸah Demirtas & Orhan Torul, 2021. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Turkey Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/05, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    15. Ulrika Ahrsjö & René Karadakic & Joachim Kahr Rasmussen, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility Trends and the Changing Role of Female Labor," CEBI working paper series 21-19, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tpr:restat:v:108:y:2026:i:1:p:1-15. 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.