IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/91714.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The changing geography of intergenerational mobility

Author

Listed:
  • Bell, Brian
  • Blundell, Jack
  • Machin, Stephen

Abstract

Does the importance of your family background on how far you get in adulthood also depend on where you grow up? For many countries, Britain included, a paucity of data has made this a question with very little reliable evidence to answer. To redress this evidence lacuna, we present a new analysis of intergenerational mobility across three cohorts in England and Wales using linked decennial census microdata. As well as testing the robustness of existing survey evidence on mobility trends over time, this large dataset permits analysis to be undertaken at a more geographically disaggregated level than was previously feasible. Evidence is presented on occupational wages, home ownership and education. Our new analysis shows a slight decline in occupation-wage mobility and a substantial decline in home ownership mobility over the late 20th century in England and Wales, while the picture for educational mobility is less clear. Focusing on the most recent cohort, we find marked geographic differences in mobility. We find that occupation-wage mobility is exceptionally high in London, while ex-industrial and mining areas experience the lowest rates of mobility. Areas with low occupation-wage mobility were more likely to vote to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Home ownership mobility is negatively correlated with house prices and not correlated with occupation-wage mobility, suggesting that geographical comparisons based on one dimension of mobility need not always align with those based on alternative measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, Brian & Blundell, Jack & Machin, Stephen, 2018. "The changing geography of intergenerational mobility," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91714, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:91714
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/91714/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jo Blanden & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2010. "Intergenerational Persistence in Income and Social Class: The Impact of Within-Group Inequality," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 10/230, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(3), pages 1163-1228.
    3. Miles Corak & Andrew Heisz, 1999. "The Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility of Canadian Men: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Data," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 504-533.
    4. David Card & Thomas Lemieux, 2001. "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(2), pages 705-746.
    5. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(3), pages 1107-1162.
    6. Jo Blanden & Stephen Machin, 2017. "Home ownership and social mobility," CentrePiece - The Magazine for Economic Performance 508, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Jo Blanden & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence in income and social class: the effect of within-group inequality," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(2), pages 541-563, February.
    8. Jo Blanden & Stephen Machin, 2008. "Up and Down the Generational Income Ladder in Britain: Past Changes and Future Prospects," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 205(1), pages 101-116, July.
    9. Stefanie Heidrich, 2017. "Intergenerational mobility in Sweden: a regional perspective," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 1241-1280, October.
    10. David Card & Ciprian Domnisoru & Lowell Taylor, 2018. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden Age of Upward Mobility," NBER Working Papers 25000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lee Elliot Major & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Social mobility and its enemies," CentrePiece - The Magazine for Economic Performance 541, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bertha Rohenkohl, 2019. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK:New evidence using the BHPS and Understanding Society," Working Papers 2019017, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    2. Disney, Richard & Gathergood, John & Machin, Stephen & Sandi, Matteo, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108426, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Sunku Prasad, J. & Muthukumar, P. & Desai, Fenil & Basu, Dipankar N. & Rahman, Muhammad M., 2019. "A critical review of high-temperature reversible thermochemical energy storage systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    4. Disney, Richard & Gathergood, John & Machin, Stephen & Sandi, Matteo, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform from the UK," CFS Working Paper Series 651, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brian Bell & Jack Blundell & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Where is the Land of Hope and Glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales," CEP Discussion Papers dp1591, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Alessandra Michelangeli & John Östh & Umut Türk, 2020. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Sweden: A look at the spatial disparities across cities," Working Papers 443, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 2020.
    4. Deutscher, Nathan & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2020. "Intergenerational mobility across Australia and the stability of regional estimates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Alberto Alesina & Marlon Seror & David Yang & Yang You & Weihong Zeng, 2020. "Persistence through Revolutions," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 20/722, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    6. Richard Disney & John Gathergood & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform in Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp1685, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Disney, Richard & Gathergood, John & Machin, Stephen & Sandi, Matteo, 2020. "Does homeownership reduce crime? A radical housing reform from the UK," CFS Working Paper Series 651, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    8. Alberto F. Alesina & Marlon Seror & David Y. Yang & Yang You & Weihong Zeng, 2020. "Persistence through Revolutions," NBER Working Papers 27053, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bertha Rohenkohl, 2019. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK:New evidence using the BHPS and Understanding Society," Working Papers 2019017, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    10. Amaral, Ernesto F. L. & Yen, Shih-Keng & Wang, Sharron Xuanren, 2019. "A meta-analysis of the association between income inequality and intergenerational mobility," OSF Preprints 8qmhw, Center for Open Science.
    11. Lars J. Lefgren & Jaren C. Pope & David P. Sims, 2019. "Contemporary State Policies and Intergenerational Income Mobility," NBER Working Papers 25896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    13. Will Davis & Alexander D. Gordan & Rusty Tchernis, 2020. "Measuring the Spatial Distribution of Health Rankings in the United States," NBER Working Papers 27259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre, 2020. "The Evolution of Cognitive Skills Inequalities by Socioeconomic Status across Canada," Working Papers 20-04, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    15. Michael J. Kottelenberg & Steven F. Lehrer, 2019. "How Skills and Parental Valuation of Education Influence Human Capital Acquisition and Early Labor Market Return to Human Capital in Canada," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 735-778.
    16. Magne Mogstad & Joseph P. Romano & Azeem Shaikh & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Inference for Ranks with Applications to Mobility across Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement across Countries," NBER Working Papers 26883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Sander Gerritsen & Mark Kattenberg & Sonny Kuijpers, 2019. "The impact of age at arrival on education and mental health," CPB Discussion Paper 389.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Bosquet, Clément & Overman, Henry G., 2019. "Why does birthplace matter so much?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 26-34.
    19. Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan & Claudia Vittori, 2017. "Moving Towards Estimating Sons' Lifetime Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the UK," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(1), pages 79-100, February.
    20. Kim, Jun Sung & Lee, Jongkwan, 2019. "The role of intergenerational mobility in internal migration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-15.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:91714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (LSERO Manager). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.