While cross-sectional increases in inequality are a cause for concern, the study of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status is perhaps more relevant. How is social status reproduced from one generation to the next? Recent work has highlighted the relationship, if not causal...

Intergenerational mobility has decreased over time for the cohorts of children born between the 1960s and the 1980s in Canada. At the same time, returns to education have gone up. Both factors have contributed to exacerbating income gaps between children of parents with and without secondary...

Our analysis of intergenerational earnings mobility modifies the Becker-Tomes model to incorporate the intergenerational transmission of employers, which is predicted to increase the intergenerational elasticity of earnings. About 6% of young Canadian men have the same main employer as their...

This comparative study of the relationship between family economic background and adult outcomes in the United States and Canada addresses three questions. First, is there something to explain? We suggest that the existing literature finds that there are significant differences in the degree of...

The intergenerational transmission of employers between fathers and sons is a common feature of labour markets in Canada and Denmark, with 30 to 40% of young adults having at some point been employed with a firm that also employed their fathers. This is strongly associated with the first jobs...

One set of government statistics shows that the average incomes of Canadians in the lowest quintile of the distribution, the “poor”, remained constant during the period from 1990 to 2009. Another set of government statistics indicates that, over the same period, the “poor” enjoyed a 180%...

Our analysis of intergenerational earnings mobility modifies the Becker-Tomes model to incorporate the intergenerational transmission of employers, which is predicted to increase the intergenerational elasticity of earnings. About 6% of young Canadian men have the same main employer as their...

This comparative study of the relationship between family economic background and adult outcomes in the United States and Canada addresses three questions. First, is there something to explain? We suggest that the existing literature finds that there are significant differences in the degree of...

We compute rates of absolute upward income mobility for the 1960-1987 birth cohorts in eight countries in North America and Europe. Rates and trends in absolute mobility varied dramatically across countries during this period: the US and Canada saw upward mobility rates near 50% for recent...

Intergenerational income mobility is lower in the United States than in Canada, but varies significantly within each country. Our sub-national analysis finds that the national border only partially distinguishes the close to one thousand regions we analyze within these two countries. The...