Multigenerational Persistence: Evidence from 146 Years of Administrative Data

This work documents multigenerational persistence in economic status, showing that not only do parents influence children’s economic outcomes, but so too do grandparents and great-grandparents. Economic persistence is measured using direct grandfather–father–son links, including up to five generations, in administrative data from Norway spanning nearly 150 years (1865–2011). The findings are robust to alternative ways of measuring the characteristics of the parent generation, as well as to alternative indicators of economic status. High persistence is observed also in subsamples where grandchildren had less chance to interact directly with grandparents, suggesting an important role of unexpressed family characteristics in intergenerational transmission. The results indicate a slower occupational convergence across families over time than what is implied by parent–child associations.