IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/108411.html

Intergenerational mobility in a mid-Atlantic economy: Canada, 1871-1901

Author

Listed:
  • Antonie, Luiza
  • Inwood, Kris
  • Minns, Chris
  • Summerfield, Fraser

Abstract

This paper uses new linked full-count census data for Canada to document intergenerational occupational mobility from 1871 to1901. We find significant differences between Canadian regions and language groups, with linguistic minorities experiencing notably lower rates of intergenerational mobility. International comparisons place Canada midway between other economies in the Americas and the most mobile European societies. Decompositions of overall mobility show that the Canadian experience shared the New World feature of high mobility from manual occupations, but also the Old World feature of greater persistence in white collar jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonie, Luiza & Inwood, Kris & Minns, Chris & Summerfield, Fraser, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility in a mid-Atlantic economy: Canada, 1871-1901," Economic History Working Papers 108411, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:108411
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/108411/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Inwood, K., 1991. "Maritime Industrialization from 1870 to 1910 ; A Review of the Evidence and Its Interpretation," Working Papers 1991-19, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    2. Berger, Thor & Engzell, Per & Eriksson, Björn & Molinder, Jakob, 2023. "Social Mobility in Sweden before the Welfare State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 431-463, June.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Guido Cozzi & Noemi Mantovan, 2012. "The Evolution of Ideology, Fairness and Redistribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(565), pages 1244-1261, December.
    4. Zachary Ward, 2023. "Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3213-3248, December.
    5. Pérez, Santiago, 2019. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility across Three Continents," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 383-416, June.
    6. Miles Corak, 2013. "Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 79-102, Summer.
    7. 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.
    8. Martha Bailey & Connor Cole & Catherine Massey, 2020. "Simple strategies for improving inference with linked data: a case study of the 1850–1930 IPUMS linked representative historical samples," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 80-93, April.
    9. Miles Corak, 2020. "The Canadian Geography of Intergenerational Income Mobility," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2134-2174.
    10. Pérez, Santiago, 2017. "The (South) American Dream: Mobility and Economic Outcomes of First- and Second-Generation Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Argentina," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 971-1006, December.
    11. Clark, Gregory & Leigh, Andrew & Pottenger, Mike, 2020. "Frontiers of mobility: Was Australia 1870–2017 a more socially mobile society than England?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "Presidential Address: Canadian labour market performance in international perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(5), pages 1097-1134, November.
    13. Green, Alan & Mackinnon, Mary & Minns, Chris, 2005. "Conspicuous by their Absence: French Canadians and the Settlement of the Canadian West," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 822-849, September.
    14. John F. Helliwell, 2001. "Canada: Life beyond the Looking Glass," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 107-124, Winter.
    15. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2015. "Culture and Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(4), pages 898-944, December.
    16. Jørgen Modalsli, 2017. "Intergenerational Mobility in Norway, 1865–2011," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 34-71, January.
    17. Zachary Ward, 2019. "Internal Migration, Education and Upward Rank Mobility:Evidence from American History," CEH Discussion Papers 04, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Antonie, Luiza & Inwood, Kris & Minns, Chris & Summerfield, Fraser, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in a Mid-Atlantic Economy: Canada, 1871–1901," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 1003-1029, December.
    2. Marie Connolly & Catherine Haeck, 2024. "Intergenerational income mobility trends in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 5-26, February.
    3. Battiston, Diego & Maurer, Stephan & Potlogea, Andrei & Rodríguez Mora, José Vicente, 2025. "The short and long run dynamics of the Great Gatsby Curve," Working Papers 49, University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality. Perceptions, Participation and Policies".
    4. Zafar, Rafia, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Consumption: Evidence from Indonesia," SocArXiv uzcfs, Center for Open Science.
    5. repec:osf:socarx:uzcfs_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Javier Cortes Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso, 2024. "Everything’s not lost: revisiting TSTSLS estimates of intergenerational mobility in developing countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 66-94, February.
    7. Li Hao & Nan Sun, 2025. "The Impact of the City-Level Intergenerational Mobility on Health: Evidence from China," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 44(2), pages 1-26, April.
    8. Martti Kaila & Emily Nix & Krista Riukula, 2021. "Disparate Impacts of Job Loss by Parental Income and Implications for Intergenerational Mobility," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 53, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    9. Chen, Wen-Hao & Ostrovsky, Yuri & Piraino, Patrizio, 2017. "Lifecycle variation, errors-in-variables bias and nonlinearities in intergenerational income transmission: new evidence from Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    10. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    11. Javier Cortes Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso, 2025. "The two-sample two-stage least squares method to estimate the intergenerational earnings elasticity," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(2), pages 549-570, June.
    12. Javier Cortés Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso & Gabriel I. Villarroel, 2024. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in Chile: the tale of the upper tail," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(5), pages 2411-2447, November.
    13. Julia Baarck & Moritz Bode & Andreas Peichl, 2025. "Rising Inequality, Declining Mobility: The Evolution of Intergenerational Mobility in Germany," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 550, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    14. Brian Bell & Jack Blundell & Stephen Machin, 2023. "Where is the Land of Hope and Glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 73-106, January.
    15. Hwang, Sam Il Myoung & Squires, Munir, 2024. "Linked samples and measurement error in historical US census data," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Shu Wang & Xiao Yu & Kuo Zhang & Jipeng Pei & Karlis Rokpelnis & Xuelong Wang, 2022. "How does education affect intergenerational income mobility in Chinese society?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 774-792, May.
    17. Orhan Torul & Oguz Oztunali, 2017. "Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Europe," Working Papers 2017/03, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    18. Anja Gaentzsch & Gabriela Zapata Román, 2018. "More educated, less mobile? Diverging trends in income and educational mobility in Chile and Peru," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 312018, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    19. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan & Katherine Eriksson & James Feigenbaum & Santiago Pérez, 2021. "Automated Linking of Historical Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 865-918, September.
    20. Muñoz, Ercio, 2021. "The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean," SocArXiv mc78h, Center for Open Science.
    21. Piraino, Patrizio, 2015. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 396-405.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    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:wpaper:108411. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.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.