Intergenerational mobility in Norway, 1865-2011

There are large differences in intergenerational mobility between countries. However, little is known about how persistent such differences are, and how they evolve over time. This paper constructs a data set of 835,537 linked father-son pairs from census records and documents a substantial increase in intergenerational occupational mobility in Norway between 1865 and 2011. The increase is most pronounced in nonfarm occupations. The findings show that long-run mobility developments previously described for the US and UK are not necessarily representative for other countries, and that high mobility in a given country today need not reflect high mobility before industrialization.