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Intergenerational Educational Mobility among Immigrants and Descendants in Denmark: The Role of Sample Selectivity and Data Quality

Author

Listed:
  • Landersø, Rasmus
  • Karlson, Kristian Bernt

    (University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

This paper studies intergenerational educational mobility among immigrants and descendants in Denmark for cohorts born between 1965 and 1990. At first glance, the data suggests that immigrants experience higher mobility than native Danes, but this pattern is driven by low coverage and poor data quality of parental education information in administrative registers. Among immigrants with the most reliable data, mobility patterns closely resemble those of natives. Auxiliary analyses using representative survey data corroborate this finding. Moreover, including immigrants in population-wide mobility estimates—given their artificially high relative mobility—attenuates trends in estimated mobility, especially for cohorts born in the 1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • Landersø, Rasmus & Karlson, Kristian Bernt, 2025. "Intergenerational Educational Mobility among Immigrants and Descendants in Denmark: The Role of Sample Selectivity and Data Quality," SocArXiv sq6e3_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:sq6e3_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/sq6e3_v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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