Economic Mobility Research Articles

Maternal Downward Neighborhood Income Mobility and Newborn Discharge to Child Protective Services

This cohort study examines whether there is an association between a mother moving into a neighborhood with lower income between births and newborn custody by child protective services at birth.

The Interaction of Global Economy Mobility on the Financial Performance of Flagged Airlines

This study examines the impact of global economic mobility and domestic production on revenue and EBITDA, which are income statement performance indicators of flagged carrier’s airline companies. The research question is whether the global economic trade mobility and domestic production will lead to an effect in the number of individuals traveling, and thus eventually affect the revenue and profitability performance of airline companies. There are studies in the literature that have selected macroeconomic indicators as affecting travel volume and financials. In this study, trade openness and direct investments represent the global economy's mobility. Short-term interest rates, oil prices and exchange rates are included in the model as a control variable. The results of the panel model indicate that trade openness have a positive effect on firms' revenues. Airline companies should develop their financial forecasts by monitoring the macroeconomic indicators that have shown significant results from empirical analysis.

Using Survey Data to Estimate Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Education in Portugal

AbstractPrevious studies about intergenerational mobility for the Portuguese economy find that education and income persistence is very high in comparison with other developed economies. We construct relative, absolute, global and local measures of mobility for Portugal, comparing them with existing evidence for this and other countries. These are the intergenerational income elasticity (computed using the two-sample two-stage least squares method), income correlation, rank-rank slope, bottom to top income level probability, the share of individuals earning more than their fathers and also the intergenerational education correlation, the low to high education level probability, and the share of individuals with a higher education level than their fathers. We consider the 1968–1988 cohorts and the 1995 and 2019 waves of the European Community Household Panel and the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, respectively. Overall, based on the point estimates, women seem to present more mobility in income. Upward income mobility is verified at the bottom while persistence exists at the top. Women present a greater absolute educational mobility. More than 80% of individuals have a higher education than their fathers and full upward education mobility exists for children of low-educated fathers. Mobility in education is higher for the offspring of medium–high-income fathers. Individuals with a high education level, in the medium–high income level or with occupations requiring a higher education level show higher mobility.

Influence of selected demographic variables on SMME survival

The economic vibrancy of most small communities is generally driven by Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) of different kind. Although the existence of these SMMEs tend to depend mainly on the disposition of the entrepreneur, the role of demographic variables tend to be very significant when it comes to their profitability and long-term survival. A myriad of research studies have highlighted the role of demographic characteristics. The paper aims to establish the influence of demographic variables on SMME sustainability and success. We employed a positivist research approach, which is descriptive in nature. A survey was used to collect data from 117 randomly sampled owners/managers respondents from a myriad of SMMEs in the Matjhabeng municipality in Welkom. Yielding a response rate of 69%. A regression analysis and interpretation was conducted to determine the influence of variables to each other. The regression data analysis revealed a mixed-bag of results with (i) education level, (ii) household income and (iii) consumer mobility reporting a significant relationship with SMME sustainability. Conversely, (iv) age level and (v) past work experience showed no significant relationship with SMME sustainability. To ensure sustained SMME growth and success, owner/managers must embrace and entrench a culture of investing not only in their self-development, but that of their team members/workforce as well. The study provides empirical evidence of the positive relationship between demographic variables and SMME’s sustained success and survival. Confirming that education and experience in particular are critical predictors of SMME success if investment on the most important asset, people, is given a high priority.

The Long-Run Impacts of Public Industrial Investment on Local Development and Economic Mobility: Evidence from World War II

Abstract This paper studies the long-run effects of government-led construction of manufacturing plants on the regions where they were built and on individuals from those regions. Specifically, we examine publicly financed plants built in dispersed locations outside of major urban centers for security reasons during the United States’ industrial mobilization for World War II. Wartime plant construction had large and persistent impacts on local development, characterized by an expansion of relatively high-wage manufacturing employment throughout the postwar era. These benefits were shared by incumbent residents; we find men born before WWII in counties where plants were built earned ${\$}$1,200 (in 2020 dollars) or 2.5 percent more per year in adulthood relative to those born in counterfactual comparison regions, with larger benefits accruing to children of lower-income parents. The balance of evidence suggests that these individuals benefited primarily from the local expansion of higher-wage jobs to which they had access as adults, rather than because of developmental effects from exposure to better environments during childhood.

Black Americans’ Landholdings and Economic Mobility after Emancipation: Evidence from the Census of Agriculture and Linked Records

Large and persistent racial disparities in land-based wealth were an important legacy of the Reconstruction era. To assess how these disparities were transmitted intergenerationally, we build a dataset to observe Black households’ landholdings in 1880 alongside a sample of White households. We then link sons from all households to the 1900 census records to observe their economic and human capital outcomes. We show that Black landowners, relative to laborers, transmitted substantial intergenerational advantages to their sons, particularly in literacy and homeownership. However, such advantages were small relative to the racial gaps in measures of economic status.

Intergenerational poverty persistence in Europe – Is there a ‘Great Gatsby Curve’ for poverty?

While the influence of poverty in childhood on adulthood outcomes has been extensively studied, little is known about how the strength of intergenerational persistence in poverty itself varies across countries. Here we examine the intergenerational persistence of poverty in a comparative analysis of 30 European countries using data from the 2019 ad hoc module of the EU-SILC dataset. We construct proxy measures of poverty in the parental household employing information on the inability to meet basic needs and financial hardship when growing up, together with parental education and occupational social class. The strength of the association between current poverty based on the indicators at the core of the EU’s social inclusion process and these measures of parental poverty is assessed and compared across countries. The cross-country variation in poverty persistence is probed concerning its relationship with the current and past extent of poverty: persistence tends to be stronger where current or parental poverty is higher, analogous to the Great Gatsby Curve relating intergenerational income mobility to income inequality at the country level. Mediation analysis highlights the role of own education as well as occupation in underpinning the observed relationship between current and parental poverty.

Prosecuting human traffickers in Nigeria: victim-witnessing and community-oriented challenges

AbstractThe paper reflects on the limitations of Nigeria’s antitrafficking efforts, as they relate, particularly, to the complexities of victim-witnessing in the prosecution of sex trafficking cases. While much has been written about the institutional and cultural impediments to victim-witnessing in Nigeria or Nigerian-related sex trafficking cases, our work seeks to ask an often underplayed, if not ignored question: Can individuals existing under unjust structures find the impetus to assist the state advance the course of justice? We respond to this question by exploring the interrelationships between political failure, community-oriented trafficking and the moral quandary faced by intercepted victims who see trafficking as a conduit for economic mobility. Utilising Robert Merton’s strain theory, we highlight how the relational dynamics between traffickers and their victims within a community-oriented trafficking context underscore an innovation adjustment to the Mertonian strain. Against this background, we conclude that victim-witnessing is and will remain a challenge for Nigeria’s criminal justice response to trafficking because victims perceive their criminal exploiters as inextricably linked to their material wellbeing.

Exit as voice, for the economically mobile: Russian migration to Central Asia & the Caucasus

ABSTRACT Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the immediate outmigration of its citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom fled to the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet, extant theories of conflict-based migration offer limited insight into why so many Russians left suddenly in response to the war. Nor can they account for the reversal of flows of skilled labor migration, which had previously gone to the metropole. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with first-wave Russian emigres, we find that the domestic support for the invasion intensified opposition-minded Russians' sense of political alienation, while legal repression motivated their immediate exit. However, the globalization of white-collar labor shaped who left. Finally, migration policy and a lower cost of living, in conjunction with other colonial legacies, shaped legal and economic mobility in ways that drew Russians to Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Does greater filial piety bring more gender income advantages? Exploring the influence of traditional Chinese filial piety on the gender wage gap

PurposeBased on traditional Chinese filial piety, this article examines the impacts and mechanisms of the two-dimensional filial piety concept “Qinqin – Zunzun” on gender wages in China via China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) conducted in 2014 and 2018.Design/methodology/approachThis article construct regression models to examine the relationship between filial piety concepts and wages. Also, it uses unconditional quantile regression and decomposition to explore the impact of filial piety concepts on the wage gap.FindingsIt is found that: (1) The effects of two-dimensional filial piety are heterogeneous in terms of gender. Specifically, authoritarian filial piety significantly suppresses individual wages and has a stronger suppressive effect on women’s wages, whereas affinity filial piety significantly enhances individual wages without gender heterogeneity; (2) Parents' time support in the intergenerational exchange model is a crucial mechanism by which filial piety affects wages, exhibiting significant gender heterogeneity; (3) Regarding wage distribution, authoritarian filial piety mainly widens the gender income gap in the low and middle income-groups, while affinity filial piety narrows the gender wage gap by “raising the floor”, with its converging effect being most significant in the middle and high-income groups. This article deepens the understanding of the gender wage gap and intergenerational income mobility, providing policy references for better utilizing the social governance function of culture.Originality/valueThe article deepens the understanding and mechanisms of the gender wage gap and inter-generational income mobility, providing policy reference for better utilizing the social governance function of culture.

From Earnings to Occupations: Understanding Intergenerational Mobility inTurkey

The studies analyzing intergenerational economic mobility have been rather scarce for developing countries due to unavailability of longitudinal datasets. This study uses data from Survey of Income and Living Condition (SILC) from2006- 2021, obtained from Turkish Statistical Institute to analyze the intergenerational income and occupational mobility in Turkey. Besides measuring the dynamics of income and occupational mobility across generations, we also analyze howdoes the association of children socioeconomic outcome with their family backgroundvary at different career levels of children. Our findings reveal that the associationwith parents income is much higher for daughters as compared to sons suggestingdaughters outcomes are more explained by their family socioeconomic status. Regarding the association of children’ outcome with family status at different career stage, the relationship is stronger when children are at the mid-career level. The Bayesian methodology and Pseudo-panel fixed effect model has beenemployed to estimate intergenerational income elasticity and for the rest of the analysis, Bayesian methodology has been utilized. Our finding also reveals higher intergenerational occupational persistence among children in higher income families while children from disadvantaged families have higher probability of switching career upon receiving good education and income perspective.

Overeducation and economic mobility

We assess the hypothesis that declining intergenerational economic mobility in Norway is attributable to a rising signaling value of education accompanied by more overeducation particularly among upper-class offspring. We identify five empirical facts that together point in this direction:• The educational earnings premium has risen, but only through the extensive (employment) margin.• The rising earnings premium is associated with completed degrees only. When educational attainment is measured as time actually invested, the premium has declined.• Both educational attainment and the labor market's skill-requirements (as predicted by the occupational distribution) have increased, but attainment has risen faster than requirements such that the incidence of overeducation has increased.• There is a steep positive social gradient in overeducation: Overeducation is more frequent and has risen faster among offspring in upper-class families.• There is a steep negative social gradient in non-employment: Non-employment is more frequent and has risen faster among offspring in lower-class families.

Income Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa’s Cape Colony

Income Mobility before Industrialization: Evidence from South Africa’s Cape Colony

Urban Sprawl and Intergenerational Mobility: City- and Neighborhood-Level Effects of Sprawl

Characteristics of sprawl, like decreased social cohesion and lower accessibility to jobs and services, could negatively affect economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility. City-level studies have found mixed results, but neighborhood effects have been largely ignored. This study uses census tract and city-level data in a multilevel model to develop a richer understanding of the scale-dependent relationship between sprawl and intergenerational mobility. The authors found that a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in sprawl at the tract level is associated with a 0.07 SD decrease in upward economic mobility, while a 1 SD increase in city-level sprawl is associated with a 0.08 SD decrease. Sprawl negatively affects upward intergenerational mobility at the metropolitan level and the census tract level. The negative relationship of economic outcomes to sprawl does not hold for high-income children, indicating that there may be conflicting benefits for different income families. Policy makers should understand these conflicting pressures.

Economic mobility and parents’ opportunity hoarding

Creating opportunities for people to achieve socioeconomic mobility is a widely shared societal goal. Paradoxically, however, achieving this goal can pose a threat to high-socioeconomic-status (SES) people as they look to maintain their privileged positions in society for both them and their children. Two studies evaluate whether this threat manifests as "opportunity hoarding" in which high-SES parents adopt attitudes and behaviors aimed at shoring up their families' access to valuable educational and economic resources. The current paper provides converging evidence for this hypothesis across two studies conducted with 2,557 American parents. An initial correlational study demonstrated that believing that socioeconomic mobility is possible was associated with high-SES parents being more inclined to attempt to secure valuable educational and economic resources for their children, even when doing so came at the cost of low-SES families. Specifically, high-SES parents with stronger beliefs in socioeconomic mobility exhibited decreased support for redistributive policies and viewed engaging in discrete behaviors that would unfairly advantage their children (e.g., allowing them to misrepresent their identities on school and job applications) as more acceptable relative to both low-SES parents with similar beliefs and high-SES parents who were less optimistic about socioeconomic mobility. A subsequent experimental study established these relationships causally by comparing parents' responses to different types of socioeconomic mobility. Together, the current findings merge insights across psychology and economics to deepen understandings of the processes through which societal inequities emerge and persist, especially during times of apparently abundant opportunity.

Can digital financial inclusion facilitate intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from China

We present an empirical study on the impact of digital finance development on intergenerational income mobility. Combining nationally representative Chinese household survey data with indices for digital financial inclusion (DFI), we find that the development of digital finance leads to a lower correlation between children's income and their fathers’ income, significantly enhancing intergenerational mobility. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the DFI index is associated with a decrease in intergenerational income elasticity by 0.04–0.05. The effect is particularly pronounced in rural and inland regions. Furthermore, we find that digital finance development stimulates household entrepreneurial activities, which in turn enhance the role of digital finance in reducing intergenerational income correlation.

Challenges and Barriers in Accessing Financial Aid for Low-Income Minority Students in the United States

This paper presents a critical analysis of some of the major barriers that low income minority students in the United States encounter in their quest for scholarships. Higher education has emerged as a critical factor for social and economic mobility and stability in the last few decades. Financial aid has really played a crucial role in enabling low-income and minority students to study at institutions of higher learning. But there are so many factors that may limit such kinds of students from accessing such help. Some of the concerns highlighted are; the process of applying for a grant is complex, there is inadequate guidance and support, and the grant system is impartial. This is especially a problem for students who do not understand the financial terms or those who have language issues. While some schools provide financial aid workshops and counseling services, there is a lack of their availability and the quality of the services provided, thus making students desperate for the assistance they require. Hence, using data from online self-completed questionnaires and interviews and conducting a review of secondary data, this research work mainly aims to identify these challenges and then propose solutions.

Intergenerational income mobility and returns to education in Southern Brazil

This study analyzes intergenerational income mobility in Southern Brazil. Previous research has demonstrated that Brazil continues to be one of the least mobile countries in the world; however, the country has experienced strong socioeconomic advances in recent decades that may have affected mobility. The use of data from the 1982 birth cohort in the city of Pelotas, in the extreme south of Brazil, makes this one of the first studies to estimate mobility using direct observations of parental and filial income in Brazil. Using various estimation techniques, the results reveal relatively high income mobility compared with past Brazilian standards. Mobility is higher for nonwhites, extremely similar across genders, and higher among the poor. The findings indicate that increased government investment in education and reduced returns to education in recent decades are possible channels.

Household income mobility and adolescent subjective well-being in China: Analyzing the mechanisms of influence

BackgroundThe relationship between adult happiness and income has been a topic of extensive discussion. However, among children and adolescents, who are not directly engaged in economic activities, the relationship between household income over time and happiness is more complex and remains less explored. MethodsWe used nationally representative data from the China Family Panel Study (CFPS) from 2012 to 2018. The analytic sample consisted of 3,607 Chinese adolescents aged 10 to 19 years in 2018. Using an ordinary least squares model, we investigated the associations of 2-year (2016–2018), 4-year (2014–2018), and 6-year (2012–2018) household income mobility (i.e., upward mobility and downward mobility) with adolescents’ subjective well-being (i.e., happiness and depression) in 2018. We further explored the potential mediating effects of parental care on these associations and whether they were moderated by adolescent age, adolescent sex, and initial household economic status. ResultsWe found that upward mobility in household income was associated with decreased subjective well-being and parental care mediated this association. Furthermore, we found that the effects of upward mobility on adolescent subjective well-being varied by age, sex, and initial household economic status. Additionally, downward income mobility did not significantly impact adolescents’ subjective well-being. ConclusionOur findings emphasized that economic progress and upward mobility should not come at the expense of parental care, as this would decrease adolescents’ subjective well-being. Collaboration between the government and families is crucial to address the conflicts between work and family responsibilities, ensuring that parents are available and supportive to their children.

Brand envy in economic disparity: Understanding and mitigating malicious envy towards brands among consumers perceiving limited economic mobility

This research explores how consumers’ perceptions of economic mobility influence their emotions towards brands. We conducted six online experiments and four surveys involving a total of 1,236 participants. Our findings suggest that individuals who believe they have limited opportunities for economic advancement experience malicious envy towards successful brands. This envy stems from a perception that the brand’s success is undeserved. Furthermore, this envy is exacerbated when brands are not seen as engaging in charitable giving. Interestingly, the effect of perceived economic mobility on envy dissipates for underdog brands, which are perceived as having exerted more effort to achieve success. Malicious envy due to low perceived economic mobility leads to negative consequences such as boycotts and negative word-of-mouth. This study addresses a gap in marketing research, traditionally focused on benign envy. By deepening our understanding of envy, this research offers strategies for managing brand relationships with consumers in less mobile societies.