Full Citation
Title: Evaluating Mobility Between Unmatched Quantiles: The E ects on Generational Mobility of Changes in Family Law in the United States
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2008
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: This paper addresses the intergenerational mobility question by examining the role offamily structure in the transmission of educational attainment using the one percentIntegrated Public Use Microsample Series (IPUMS) of the decennial Census for thedecades 1970 and 1990. We rst introduce mobility indices and tests which examinethe proximity of the transition matrix to that which would pertain in the perfectlymobile state. Unlike existing transition matrix based mobility indices, these indicesand tests can be employed when the quantiles of the marginal states are unmatched,and when the transition matrix is between states that are de ned multivariately. Usingeducational attainment as a proxy for permanent income for children and both educa-tional attainment and income as proxies for parents, the tests indicate that mobilitysigni cantly increased for the population as a whole. Within the single parent groupthere was much less evidence for signi cant mobility change for children from widowedsingle parent families than for children from divorced and separated single parent fam-ilies. There is also some evidence of convergence between intact and, divorced andseparated parent families, suggesting that there is a trend towards equal opportunity.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Anderson, Gordon
Publisher: University of Toronto
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Other
Countries: