How Much Scope for a Mobility Paradox? The Relationship between Social and Income Mobility in Sweden

Carina Mood,Richard Breen,Jan Jonsson

doi:10.15195/v3.a3

Abstract

It is often pointed out that conclusions about intergenerational (parent – child) mobility can differ depending on whether we base them on studies of class or income. We analyze empirically the degree of overlap in income and social mobility and we demonstrate mathematically the nature of their relationship.. Analyzing Swedish longitudinal register data on the incomes and occupations of over 300,000 parent-child pairs, we find that social mobility accounts for up to 49 per cent of the observed intergenerational income correlations. This figure is somewhat greater for a fine-graded micro-class classification than a five-class schema, and somewhat greater for women than men. Our empirical results verify that the overlap between income mobility and social mobility leaves ample room for the two indicators to move in different directions over time, or show diverse patterns across countries. We explain the circumstances under which income and social mobility will change together or co-vary positively, and the circumstances in which they will diverge.

Highlights

It is often pointed out that conclusions about intergenerational mobility can differ depending on whether we base them on studies of class or income
When societies are ranked according to the extent of their economic and social intergenerational mobility we see a good deal of agreement, with the Scandinavian countries displaying high rates of income mobility and high relative social mobility—or social fluidity1—and countries such as Britain, Italy and Germany somewhat lower levels of both
Whether we accept the idea that the two ways of studying intergenerational associations embody something common or take the view that they are different, the fundamental question is the same: how are income and social mobility related, both formally and empirically? Are they so closely related that divergent trends over time, or differences in country rankings, should be seen as paradoxes, or are they so disconnected that viewing them as two indicators of a common phenomenon is likely to be entirely off the mark?

Summary

Introduction

It is often pointed out that conclusions about intergenerational (parent–child) mobility can differ depending on whether we base them on studies of class or income. As Blanden, Gregg and Macmillan (2013:542) state, in their comparison of social and economic mobility trends in the United Kingdom, “The view that we adopt here is that both are trying to assess long-term or permanent socioeconomic status but measure it in different ways.”. Discrepancies, such as that found in the case of the United States, have to be explained in terms of differences in the empirical operationalization of the two forms of mobility. Starting from a framework developed by Björklund and Jäntti (2000), Blanden (2013), and Blanden et al (2013), we ask how much of the income correlations across generations could be accounted for by social mobility, and we estimate the degree of overlap between income and social class mobility to be 30–50 percent. 2 We show this overlap for the conventionally reported father-to-son association, but take a step further by studying the impact of mothers and the outcomes of daughters

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Results

Conclusion