Regular employment and intergenerational income mobility in Japan

The sociological analysis of the mobility tables enhances the examination of the circulation mobility and helps one reveal the nuanced morphological patterns of mobility. In contrast, the economic analysis based on the measure of elasticity provides a handy way of covariate conditioning and statistically testing the similarities of mobility patterns across groups. In this article, we argue that the distinct methodological merits of these two approaches can be equipped by adopting a more comprehensive analytical framework using the copula functions: (1) The copula functions concern the dependence structure that is independent from the margins, which enable scholars to focus on the relative mobility; (2) The copula density, estimated either parametrically or non-parametrically, reveals the nuanced morphological mobility patterns; (3) By residualizing the marginal variables, the detected mobility pattern can be interpreted in a stronger causal sense; and (4) the Cramér–von Mises Test offers an easy-to-use statistic to conduct intergroup comparison of mobility patterns. The copula-based framework is illustrated by investigating the income mobility between 1978 and 2017 in the U.S., using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79).

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How Robust are Estimates of Intergenerational Income Mobility?

10.31235/osf.io/gd2t6 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Per Engzell ◽

Carina Mood

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Family Income ◽

Income Mobility ◽

Model Choice ◽

Men And Women ◽

Intergenerational Income Mobility ◽

The Family ◽

Women's Earnings ◽

Rich Countries ◽

Swedish Data

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. It is well established that intergenerational income mobility is lower in countries with high inequality, but research on trends in mobility finds conflicting results. Motivated by this uncertainty, we ask: how important are choices of specification for levels and trends in intergenerational income associations? We use Swedish data on cohorts born 1958–1977 and their parents. Varying how, when and for whom income is measured, we estimate 1,658,880 different associations (82,944 specifications across 20 cohorts). Our results reveal that model choice is an underrecognized source of variation in intergenerational mobility research. The most consistent contributor to trends is the advancement of women in the labor market, which leads to increased persistence in women’s earnings and the family income of both men and women. Depending on specification, it is possible to conclude that income mobility is increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat. Despite variability, our results are broadly consistent with the received view that the level of mobility in Sweden is high in a comparative perspective.

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