IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_13051.html

Like a Good Neighbor: Childhood Neighbors Influence Occupation Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Andrews
  • Ryan Hill
  • Joseph Price
  • Riley Wilson

Abstract

We study how childhood neighbors influence occupational choices and later-life earnings. Using linked census records for over 10 million children and historic census sheet microgeography, we find that growing up next door to someone in a given occupation increases the probability of being in that occupation as an adult by 10 percent relative to other children on the same street. The transmission effect is higher with more intense exposure, more connected neighborhoods, and between more similar families. Exposure to high-income or highly educated neighbors has lasting economic effects, leading to significant gains in adult income and education.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Andrews & Ryan Hill & Joseph Price & Riley Wilson, 2026. "Like a Good Neighbor: Childhood Neighbors Influence Occupation Choice," CESifo Working Paper Series 13051, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp13051.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    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:ces:ceswps:_13051. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.