IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ifauwp/2025_002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The relationship between intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity

Author

Listed:
  • Adermon, Adrian

    (Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), UCLS, and UCFS)

  • Brandén, Gunnar

    (Center for Epidemiology and Community Medicine and Department of Global Public Health, Global and Sexual Health, Karolinska Institutet)

  • Nybom, Martin

    (Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), SOFI, and UCLS.)

Abstract

Among economists, empirical analysis of social mobility and the role of parental background is largely carried out in two separate strands of research. The intergenerational mobility literature estimates parent-child persistence in a certain outcome of interest, such as income. In contrast, the equality of opportunity literature is rooted in a normative framework, and has only more recently started generating empirical evidence. Intergenerational mobility regressions are relatively straightforward to estimate, but their normative implications are less obvious. In contrast, measures of equality of opportunity have a policy-relelvant interpretation, but are demanding in terms of data, requiring the researcher to observe a large set of determinants of socioeconomic status for large samples. But maybe the two approaches capture similar underlying dynamics? We compare the two approaches by estimating both equality of opportunity and intergenerational mobility measures — as well as sibling correlations — across 16 birth cohorts within 126 Swedish local labor markets. Using these estimates, we test to what extent the different measures correlate, resulting in insights on the plausibility of interpreting intergenerational mobility measures as informative about equality of opportunity.

Suggested Citation

  • Adermon, Adrian & Brandén, Gunnar & Nybom, Martin, 2025. "The relationship between intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity," Working Paper Series 2025:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2025_002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2025/wp-2025-2-the-relationship-between-intergenerational-mobility-and-equality-of-opportunity.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2005. "Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 235-255, May.
    2. Paul Hufe & Andreas Peichl & Daniel Weishaar, 2022. "Lower and upper bound estimates of inequality of opportunity for emerging economies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(3), pages 395-427, April.
    3. Roemer, John E. & Aaberge, Rolf & Colombino, Ugo & Fritzell, Johan & Jenkins, Stephen P. & Lefranc, Arnaud & Marx, Ive & Page, Marianne & Pommer, Evert & Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 2003. "To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 539-565, March.
    4. Markus Jäntti & Eva Österbacka & Oddbjörn Raaum & Tor Eriksson & Anders Björklund, 2002. "Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 757-772.
    5. Paolo Brunori & Paul Hufe & Daniel Mahler, 2023. "The roots of inequality: estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees and forests," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(4), pages 900-932, October.
    6. Gary Solon & Mary Corcoran & GRoger Gordon & Deborah Laren, 1991. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Sibling Correlations in Economic Status," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(3), pages 509-534.
    7. Brunori, Paolo & Hufe, Paul & Mahler, Daniel, 2023. "The roots of inequality: estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees and forests," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118220, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Roemer, John E. & Aaberge, Rolf & Colombino, Ugo & Fritzell, Johan & Jenkins, Stephen P. & Lefranc, Arnaud & Marx, Ive & Page, Marianne & Pommer, Evert & Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 2003. "To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 539-565, March.
    9. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    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. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    2. Daniel D. Schnitzlein, 2016. "A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 650-667, December.
    3. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Gustavo A. Marrero & Juan G. Rodriguez, 2012. "Macroeconomic determinants of inequality of opportunity and effort in the US: 1970-2009," Working Papers 249, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. repec:osf:osfxxx:8qmhw_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. 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.
    7. Julia Bredtmann & Nina Smith, 2018. "Inequalities in Educational Outcomes: How Important Is the Family?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(6), pages 1117-1144, December.
    8. Schnitzlein, Daniel D., 2014. "How Important Is the Family? Evidence from Sibling Correlations in Permanent Earnings in the USA, Germany, and Denmark," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 69-89.
    9. repec:osf:socarx:ud42t_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Shahe Emran & Forhad Shilpi, 2019. "Economic approach to intergenerational mobility: Measures, methods, and challenges in developing countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-98, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Guell, Maia & Rodriguez Mora, Jose V. & Telmer, Chris, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and the informative content of surnames," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19701, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2008. "Sibling similarities and economic inequality in the US," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 685-701, July.
    13. Lena Lindahl, 2011. "A comparison of family and neighborhood effects on grades, test scores, educational attainment and income—evidence from Sweden," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 207-226, June.
    14. Rainer Winkelmann, 2005. "Subjective well-being and the family: Results from an ordered probit model with multiple random effects," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 749-761, October.
    15. Ooghe, Erwin & Peichl, Andreas, 2010. "Fair and Efficient Taxation under Partial Control: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 5388, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Vito Peragine & Laura Serlenga, 2008. "Higher education and equality of opportunity in Italy," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality and Opportunity: Papers from the Second ECINEQ Society Meeting, pages 67-97, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. P. Brunori & F. Palmisano & V. Peragine, 2014. "Income taxation and equity: new dominance criteria and an application to Romania," SERIES 0050, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", revised Dec 2014.
    18. Christopher Herrington, 2015. "Public Education Financing, Earnings Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 822-842, October.
    19. Andrea Salas‐Ortiz & Andrew M. Jones, 2024. "Inequality of opportunity in the double burden of malnutrition in Mexico," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(10), pages 2342-2380, October.
    20. Felipe Rivera, 2017. "Health opportunities in Colombia," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 87, pages 125-164, Julio - D.
    21. Luís Clemente-Casinhas & Luís Filipe Martins & Alexandra Ferreira-Lopes, 2025. "Using Survey Data to Estimate Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Education in Portugal," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 51-106, January.
    22. Schokkaert, Erik & Van de gaer, Dirk & Vandenbroucke, Frank & Luttens, Roland Iwan, 2004. "Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 151-182, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Equality of opportunity; Intergenerational mobility; Sibling correlations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    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:hhs:ifauwp:2025_002. 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: Ali Ghooloo The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Ali Ghooloo to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifagvse.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.