ERIC Number: EJ1485821
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Nov
Pages: 39
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0049-1241
EISSN: EISSN-1552-8294
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Immobility as Memory: Some New Approaches to Characterizing Intergenerational Persistence via Markov Chains
Sociological Methods & Research, v54 n4 p1396-1434 2025
This article proposes some new measures of intergenerational persistence based on the idea of characterizing the memory of origin in the stochastic process that links the socioeconomic classes of parents and children. We introduce "memory curves" for all future generations given any initial condition of class for a family dynasty, which reveal how initial conditions interact with the transition process between parents and children to create mobility and persistence. We also propose ways to aggregate information across different classes to produce overall characterizations of mobility in the population. To illustrate our measures, we estimate occupational "memory curves" using U.S. survey data. Our findings show that, on average, the memory of initial conditions dissipates largely within three generations, though there is meaningful heterogeneity in mobility rates across dynasties originating from different occupational classes.
Descriptors: Socioeconomic Status, Social Mobility, Persistence, Markov Processes, Occupations, Family Relationship, Measurement Techniques
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; 2Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria; 3Harris School of Public Policy and Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

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