Intergenerational persistence of family formation trajectories among teenage-mothers and -fathers in Sweden

In this paper, we address the questions of whether early family trajectories of parents are reflected in childbearing teenagers, and how socio-economic and family background factors impact these intergenerational correlations. We use within-dyad sequence analysis to examine combined marital and childbearing trajectories, up to age 30, of two generations of a representative sample of childbearing teenagers born between 1975 and 1985 and their progenitors, drawn from the Swedish population register data. We find evidence for within-family persistence of early family trajectories, with better matches across family state sequences for dyads composed of childbearing teenagers and their parents, than for dyads composed of childbearing teenagers and parents of random birth cohort peers. Regression analysis shows that these intergenerational associations are stronger and occur among later-born siblings from non-traditional family backgrounds, and among families with lower socio-economic backgrounds. This study fills gaps in the knowledge of intergenerational family life course dynamics beyond the early parenthood event.

Scaling Occupations in Intergenerational Research - An Evaluation with Swedish register data

We evaluate how different occupational scales prevalent in the literature can capture intergenerational transmissions in Sweden. Previous research is limited by not taking competing dimensions of SES transmission into account when assessing performances of occupational scales. Using Swedish administrative data, we find, in contrast to classical findings, that the composite International Socio-Economic Index of occupational status (ISEI) has the highest intergenerational correlations net of other SES dimensions (education, income and wealth), followed by Treiman measure of occupational prestige (SIOPS). The now popular measure of occupational education following from Hauser and Warren (1997) suffer from slightly larger overlap with education; more of its intergenerational correlation is explained by parents’ education. However, similar to Hauser and Warren, we find monetary scales of occupations based on earnings or wages to have lower intergenerational significance. The CAMSIS scale for status lies in between occupational earnings and education.

Differences between sons and daughters in the intergenerational transmission of wealth

Persistent interest lies in gender inequality, especially with regard to the favouring of sons over daughters. Economists are concerned with how privilege is transmitted across generations, and anthropologists have long studied sex-biased inheritance norms. There has, however, been no focused cross-cultural investigation of how parent–offspring correlations in wealth vary by offspring sex. We estimate these correlations for 38 wealth measures, including somatic and relational wealth, from 15 populations ranging from hunter–gatherers to small-scale farmers. Although small sample sizes limit our statistical power, we find no evidence of ubiquitous male bias, at least as inferred from comparing parent–son and parent–daughter correlations. Rather we find wide variation in signatures of sex bias, with evidence of both son and daughter-biased transmission. Further, we introduce a model that helps pinpoint the conditions under which simple mid-point parent–offspring wealth correlations can reveal information about sex-biased parental investment. Our findings are relevant to the study of female-biased kinship by revealing just how little normative descriptors of kinship systems, such as patrilineal inheritance, capture intergenerational correlations in wealth, and how variable parent–son and parent–daughter correlations can be. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals'.

The Decline in Earnings of Childhood Immigrants in the United States

This article provides evidence that, like adult immigrants, male childhood immigrants in the United States, that is, those who arrived before age 18, have experienced a declining trend in their earnings, educational attainment, and English language proficiency over time. Consistent with a strong relationship between the outcomes of parents and children, I find that these declining trends in childhood immigrant outcomes can be explained by controlling for the earnings, and especially educational attainment, of the “potential parents” of these childhood immigrants, that is, adult immigrants from the same birthplace who arrived to the United States during the same time period. Such intergenerational correlations appear to be stronger for childhood immigrants who arrive at a later age. These results highlight the importance of considering immigration from a multi-generational perspective, where the characteristics of immigrants admitted today inform the economic prospects of future generations.

Are We Architects of Our Own Happiness? The Importance of Family Background for Well-Being

This paper analyzes whether individuals have equal opportunity to achieve happiness (or well-being). We estimate sibling correlations and intergenerational correlations in self-reported life satisfaction, satisfaction with household income, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with health. We find high sibling correlations for all measures of well-being. The results suggest that family background explains, on average, between 30% and 60% of the inequality in permanent well-being. The influence is smaller when the siblings’ psychological and geographical distance from their parental home is larger. Results from intergenerational correlations suggest that parental characteristics are considerably less important than family and community factors.