Intergenerational mobility and assortative mating in the US by Jan Stuhler

Join us for the latest Applied Economics Research Seminar Series event, Spring Term 2025.

Jan Stuhler, from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, will present this week's seminar on Intergenerational mobility and assortative mating in the US.

Abstract

We study intergenerational mobility and assortative mating in the US, using an extended-kin design and longitudinally linked records from the 1900-1940 Censuses. By comparing many kinship moments we can abstract from measurement error and examine the “anatomy” of intergenerational transmission across assortative and other margins. We find that mobility was lower than conventional estimates suggest. Particularly striking is the degree of assortative mating, with a spousal correlation in latent advantages of about 0.85. We then compare the anatomy of educational mobility across regions. While kinship correlations were higher in the South, this is partly due to schooling being a more accurate proxy for underlying advantages, whereas the degree of sorting was only mildly stronger. Finally, we show that the early 20th-century U.S. had only slightly lower mobility, and moderately higher sorting, than modern-day Sweden, though schooling was a better proxy for latent advantages.

The seminar will begin with a presentation and will end with a Q and A session.

It will be held in the Economics Common Room at 2pm on Thursday, 27 March 2025. This event is open to all levels of study and is also open to the public. To register your place and gain access to the webinar, please contact the seminar organisers.

This event is part of the Applied Economics Research Seminar Series.