IQ and Family Background: Are Associations Strong or Weak?

For the purpose of understanding the underlying mechanisms behind intergenerational associations in income and education, recent studies have explored the intergenerational transmission of abilities. We use a large representative sample of Swedish men to examine both intergenerational and sibling correlations in IQ. Since siblings share both parental factors and neighbourhood influences, the sibling correlation is a broader measure of the importance of family background than the intergenerational correlation. We use IQ data from the Swedish military enlistment tests. The correlation in IQ between fathers (born 1951-1956) and sons (born 1966-1980) is estimated to 0.347. The corresponding estimate for brothers (born 1951-1968) is 0.473, suggesting that family background explains approximately 50% of a person's IQ. Estimating sibling correlations in IQ we thus find that family background has a substantially larger impact on IQ than has been indicated by previous studies examining only intergenerational correlations in IQ.ability, intergenerational mobility, family background

How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?

Using results on brother correlations of different groups of second generation immigrants based on administrative data from Denmark, this note analyzes the role of cultural background in the determination of the level of intergenerational mobility. The estimated correlations indicate that cultural background is not an important factor for the level of intergenerational mobility. --Intergenerational mobility,Sibling correlations

Leaving home, family support and intergenerational ties in Italy: Some regional differences

In Italy conditions at leaving home are characterized by high age at exit, high proximity with parents and widespread intergenerational support, showing important regional differences. According to the "familistic" approach such conditions spread from strong intergenerational ties. Proximity and support are considered proxies of ties’ strength so that different regional proximity and support correspond to different ties’ intensities. The study aims at analyzing similarities and differences about parent-child ties, proximity and support in selected Italian regions, Liguria, Umbria, Sicily and Sardinia. Results show important differences among regions with respect to proximity and support, suggesting different intensity of intergenerational ties.family ties, intergenerational proximity, intergenerational support, regional comparison

Intergenerational ties in Latinx Protestant congregations: sustaining ethnicity through organizational and affective connections

This paper examines the persistence of intergenerational ties within Latinx Protestant Congregations (LPCs) and the implications these ties have for the persistence of LPCs as distinctly ethnic institutions. Though studies of generational transitions within ethnic congregations tend to emphasize intergenerational discontinuity, this paper uncovers ways that Latinx Protestants maintain intergenerational ties through LPC involvement, both within and across institutional settings. Rather than focusing on the content of intergenerational transmission, such as cultural practices, ethnic material, or explicit identity labels, this paper is concerned with a more preliminary matter of ethnic identity maintenance—the persistence of channels of transmission across generations. In particular, this paper examines how LPC organizational structures sustain cross-generational links, and how later generation Latinxs express affective ties to earlier generation Latinxs. Taking a religious ecology approach, findings are based on in-depth qualitative research conducted within six LPCs, and an informal survey of eleven additional LPCs, all located in the city of Santa Ana, California, a Latinx majority city. Findings suggest that LPCs are successfully cultivating intergenerational ties among a select group of later generation Latinxs, and that later generation Latinxs who stay connected to LPCs value these ties.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/9/504/htmPublished versio

Following in Your Father's Footsteps: A Note on the Intergenerational Transmission of Income between Twin Fathers and their Sons

We provide the first twin-based estimates of the intergenerational transmission of income between fathers and sons. Using Swedish register data on the income of monozygotic twin fathers and their sons, we are able to control for unobserved endowments at the twin-pair level when estimating the intergenerational relationship. We find a cross-sectional intergenerational income elasticity of 0.276, while our twin-based intergenerational income elasticity is 0.12. This is close to the estimate of 0.10 found by Björklund et al. (2006) using an adoption design. This suggests that at most half of the income transmission can be given a causal interpretation.twins, income, intergenerational transmission, intergenerational mobility

Sustainability and Optimality in Economic Development: Theoretical Insights and Policy Prospects

This paper takes sustainability to be a matter of intergenerational welfare equality and examines whether an optimal development path can also be sustainable. It argues that the general “zero-net-aggregate-investment” condition for an optimal development path to be sustainable in the sense of the maximin criterion of intergenerational justice is too demanding to be practical, especially in the context of developing countries. The maximin criterion of sustainability may be more appealing to the rich advanced industrial countries, but is too costly and ethically unreasonable for developing nations as it would act as an intergenerational “poverty equalizer”. The paper suggests that a compromise development policy that follows the optimal growth approach but adopts certain measures to mitigate the intergenerational and intragenerational welfare inequalities may better serve these countries. Some of the principal elements of such a policy are highlighted.Sustainability, Intergenerational Equity, Optimality, Discounting, Development Policy

Wealth and Economic Mobility

Reviews studies of how wealth shapes intergenerational mobility through education, neighborhood choice, and occupational choice. Examines the roles of intergenerational assets transfers, credit constraints, and home ownership in children's mobility

Trends in Intergenerational Income Mobility

Previous studies of recent U.S. trends in intergenerational income mobility have produced widely varying results, partly because of large sampling errors. By making more efficient use of the available information in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we generate more reliable estimates of the recent time-series variation in intergenerational mobility. Our results, which pertain to the cohorts born between 1952 and 1975, do not reveal major changes in intergenerational mobility.

Intergenerational mobility in educational and occupational status: evidence from the U.S.

In this paper we take up Goldberger’s (1989) suggestion to investigate intergenerational mobility using non-monetary measures. We use a newly released data set, the NELS, which allows us to investigate the contemporary intergenerational mobility in education and occupation in the United States. Our results from order logit models indicate strong evidence of intergenerational linkage in educational attainment and occupational status between parents’ and their children. We allow for family background during adolescence and find supporting evidence for the child qualityquantity trade-off. Negative effects of non-intact family are also found. Racial differences in the patterns of intergenerational mobility are also highlighted in this study.