Educational expansion, earnings compression and changes in intergenerational economic mobility : Evidence from French cohorts, 1931-1976

This paper analyzes long-term trends in intergenerational earnings mobility in France. I estimate intergenerational earnings elasticities for male cohorts born between 1931 and 1975. This time period has witnessed important changes in the French labor market and educational system, in particular a large expansion in access to secondary and higher education as well as an important compression of earnings differentials. Intergenerational mobility is estimated using a two-sample instrumental variables approach. Over the period, intergenerational earnings mobility exhibits a V-shaped pattern. Mobility falls between cohorts born in the mid 1930s and those born in the mid 1950s, but subsequently rises. For cohorts born in the first half of the 1970s, age-adjusted intergenerational earnings elasticity amount to around .55. This value is significantly higher than the elasticity estimated for the baby-boom cohorts. It is also slightly lower than the elasticity estimated for cohorts born in the 1930s but the difference is not statistically significant. Changes in the extent of mobility mostly reflects the evolution of cross-section earnings inequality, rather than variations in positional mobility.