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A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the US

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  • Daniel D. Schnitzlein

Abstract

Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the US, reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than the US. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the US. However, based on highly comparable data, even a reasonable degree of variation in the sampling rules leads to similar estimates in both countries. I find no evidence for nonlinearities along the fathers’ earnings distribution. In contrast, the analysis shows that mobility is higher for the sons at the lowest quartile of the sons’ earnings distribution in both countries. In Germany this result is mainly driven by a high downward mobility of sons with fathers in the upper middle part of the earnings distribution. The corresponding pattern is clearly less pronounced in the US.

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  • Daniel D. Schnitzlein, 2014. "A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the US," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 689, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp689
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    Cited by:

    1. Dodin, Majed & Findeisen, Sebastian & Henkel, Lukas & Sachs, Dominik & Schüle, Paul, 2024. "Social mobility in Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    2. Graeber, Daniel, 2023. "Intergenerational Health Mobility in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 16567, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Michele Raitano & Francesco Vona & Claudia Vittori, 2015. "The effect of parental background along the son's earnings distribution : does one model fit for all?," Working Papers hal-03459749, HAL.
    4. Maximilian Stockhausen, 2021. "Like father, like son? A comparison of absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility in Germany and the US," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(4), pages 667-683, December.
    5. Carl Leonard Fischer & Lorenz Meister, 2023. "Economic Determinants of Populism," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 145, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Espen Bratberg & Jonathan Davis & Bhashkar Mazumder & Martin Nybom & Daniel D. Schnitzlein & Kjell Vaage, 2017. "A Comparison of Intergenerational Mobility Curves in Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the US," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 72-101, January.
    7. Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan & Claudia Vittori, 2015. "Nonlinear Estimation of Lifetime Intergenerational Economic Mobility and the Role of Education," DoQSS Working Papers 15-03, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    8. Jan Kluge & Michael Weber, 2015. "Decomposing the German East-West wage gap," ifo Working Paper Series 205, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    9. Peter, Frauke H. & Zambre, Vaishali, 2017. "Intended college enrollment and educational inequality: Do students lack information?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 60, pages 125-141.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/40f5jv61a38nob8n540ho53vpu is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/40f5jv61a38nob8n540ho53vpu is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Fehr, Dietmar & Müller, Daniel & Preuss, Marcel, 2024. "Social mobility perceptions and inequality acceptance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 366-384.
    13. Iryna Kyzyma & Olaf Groh-Samberg, 2020. "Estimation of intergenerational mobility in small samples: evidence from German survey data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 621-643, September.
    14. Bonacini, Luca & Gallo, Giovanni & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Sometimes you cannot make it on your own. How household background influences chances of success in Italy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 832, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Francesco Bloise & Michele Raitano, 2021. "Intergenerational Earnings Persistence in Italy between Actual Father–Son Pairs Accounting for Lifecycle and Attenuation Bias," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(1), pages 88-114, February.
    16. Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan & Claudia Vittori, 2019. "Intergenerational income mobility: access to top jobs, the low-pay no-pay cycle and the role of education in a common framework," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 501-528, April.
    17. Coban, Mustafa & Sauerhammer, Sarah, 2017. "Transmission channels of intergenerational income mobility: Empirical evidence from Germany and the Unites States," Discussion Paper Series 138, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    18. Francesco Bloise & Michele Raitano, 2019. "Intergenerational earnings elasticity of actual father-son pairs in Italy accounting for lifecycle and attenuation bias," Working Papers 504, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    19. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    20. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920, February.
    21. Daniel Reiter & Mario Thomas Palz & Margareta Kreimer, 2020. "Intergenerational transmission of economic success in Austria with a focus on migration and gender," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 54(1), pages 1-20, December.
    22. Dietmar Fehr & Daniel Müller & Marcel Preuss, 2022. "(In-)equality of Opportunity, Fairness, and Distributional Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 10001, CESifo.
    23. Paul Hufe & Andreas Peichl & Daniel Weishaar, 2018. "Intergenerationelle Einkommensmobilität: Schlusslicht Deutschland?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(20), pages 20-28, October.

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    Keywords

    intergenerational mobility; SOEP; CNEF; Germany; US;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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