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Title: Interpreting Gender Differences in Intergenerational Mobility

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2009

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Abstract: This paper investigates gender differences in economic mobility. In a sample ofmarried couples constructed from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I findthat the intergenerational elasticity of earnings for daughters is significantly lower thanfor sons. I ask whether this gap can be explained by three inter-related mechanisms:parental investments in human capital, positive assortative matching of spouses, andlabor supply responses of married women to their husbands earnings. I develop adynamic general equilibrium model with parental investments to evaluate the relativecontribution of the proposed mechanisms. The parameters are estimated using themethod of simulated moments. My results show that labor supply responses explainabout 83% of the gender gap. They also suggest that parental investments are highlyinfluenced by marriage market conditions, and that this influence is much stronger fordaughters than for sons. As a consequence, the average human capital of men andwomen in the steady state would be reduced by 16% and 45% respectively if humancapital investments did not affect spouses characteristics.

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Authors: Melitsko, Silvana

Publisher: New York University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Gender, Other

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