Genetic ability and intergenerational earnings mobility

This paper examines the role of genetic ability in generating the strong positive intergenerational earnings correlation observed in the USA. We compare the intergenerational wage and earnings elasticities of adopted children with these of non-adopted children. Because adopted children’s genetic ability does not depend on that of their adoptive parents, the differences between these two samples reveal the importance of genetic ability in transmitting earnings ability across generations. We find that the earnings correlation between fathers and children would be halved if their biological link was removed. Our results suggest that inheritable ability plays a very important role in passing parents’ earnings ability on to their children.      

“跨代育儿组合”与中国独生子女的养育——评《中国独生子女政策与多重照顾》

独生子女的照顾与养育是城市家庭面临的重要事务。在强调相互影响的“双向模型”理论导引下,将中国城市家庭对独生子女的养育过程还原到跨代育儿的家庭系统之中,《多重照顾》由此给读者呈现了儿童作为社会行动者的能动性,展示了他们与由父辈、祖辈共同构成的跨代育儿组合的互动过程,用丰富的经验数据揭示了跨代育儿组合内部的动态性与复杂性。“双向模型”、“跨代育儿组合”等理论性概念的提出,对于中国独生子女养育的实践与研究具有重要的启发意义。     

Intergenerational effects of further vocational training in Germany

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the influence of unemployed parents’ further vocational training on their children’s future apprenticeship and employment opportunities. We focus on households receiving means-tested benefits in Germany and investigate whether parents’ further vocational training helps avoid an intergenerational transmission of unemployment. Parents’ further vocational training can affect children’s future apprenticeship and employment opportunities directly, for instance by raising the value attributed to education and training within the family. Indirect effects via parents’ improved employment opportunities are possible as well. The sample consists of adolescents who were 14–17 years old when their parents participated in a further vocational training programme. We evaluate apprenticeship and employment outcomes for the young adults at ages 17–23 using entropy balancing methods on the basis of rich large-scale register data. Our findings indicate significantly positive effects of parents’ further vocational training on children’s apprenticeship enrolment but non-significant or negative effects on children’s regular employment at young ages. Moreover, mediation analysis gives evidence that these effects are partly mediated via an increase in parents’ own employment opportunities. Overall, our analyses indicate that parents’ further vocational training improves the qualifications of the next generation as well.     

Extremism within the family

This paper considers an economic analysis of intergenerational transition of ethnic and social trait. We consider the level of social traits chosen by parents and its effect on their children’s choice of ethnic and social traits when reaching adulthood. We develop a theory that suggests that parents will chose extreme ethnic and social traits to increase the cost that their children will pay if they wish to deviate from their parents’ “ideal.” The extreme choice of the ethnic social traits of parents has an effect on the segregation of minorities and migrants.

Status Traps

In this article, we explore nonlinearities in the intergenerational mobility process using threshold regression models. We uncover evidence of threshold effects in children's outcomes based on parental education and cognitive and noncognitive skills as well as their interaction with offspring characteristics. We interpret these thresholds as organizing dynastic earning processes into “status traps.” Status traps, unlike poverty traps, are not absorbing states. Rather, they reduce the impact of favorable shocks for disadvantaged children and so inhibit upward mobility in ways not captured by linear models. Our evidence of status traps is based on three complementary datasets; that is, the PSID, the NLSY, and US administrative data at the commuting zone level, which together suggest that the threshold-like mobility behavior we observe in the data is robust for a range of outcomes and contexts.     

Intergenerational Relations between English Students,Graduates Living at Home,and their Parents

Debate about intergenerational relations has become more prominent since the financial crisis of 2007–09, focusing particularly on the difficulties faced by young adults trying to enter the labour and housing markets, whilst often bearing high levels of debt incurred as students. This article reviews the nature of the ‘intergenerational contract’ at both the micro level of the family, and at the macro level between individuals and the state. We then present qualitative, empirical data on the relationship between parents and: (1) their student children; and (2) their graduate children who have returned home. We focus primarily on the financial support provided by parents to the two groups. We explore why support is given, and the nature of similarities and differences in terms of what is given. We find that virtually all parents who were able to support their young adult children financially did so, but to different degrees and with different amounts of tension and anxiety. We suggest that the increased importance of the intergenerational contract at the micro level is likely to contribute to intra‐ rather than intergenerational inequalities.     

Welfare myths: The transmission of values and work among TANF families

Both “welfare culture” arguments and structural explanations of poverty suggest that attitudes may have an effect on work and welfare outcomes. However, most scholars only examine objective behaviors and characteristics despite the fact that values are an underlying mechanism in explanations of the transmission of welfare and work behavior. Using data from a survey of recent welfare recipients in Louisiana and structural equation methods, we analyze causal relationships among family background, socioeconomic characteristics, attitudes, and two outcomes—TANF participation and employment. We find some support for the intergenerational transmission of welfare but not through values; we find no evidence that under the TANF system, values inhibit work.     

机会不等与收入不均:城乡家庭收入的代际流动

文章提出了机会平等的定义,并给出了二阶随机占优条件下的检验方法。在控制子女努力水平后,利用CHNS数据从代际流动的角度考察了基于家庭背景的机会不等对子女收入的影响。分位回归结果表明,随着分位数的提高,城乡子女收入差距越来越小,但由于机会不等而引起的差异却存在扩大的趋势。建议政府加强对农村教育的投入,提供更多就业培训,为农村子女的发展创造更多的机会。     

Intergenerational solidarity and intragenerational relations between adult siblings

Few studies have yet investigated how intergenerational solidarity between parents and adult children is associated with intragenerational relations between siblings. Theoretically, one might expect compensation between inter- and intragenerational relationship solidarity as well as spillover effects from parent-child solidarity to sibling solidarity. Using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), this study analyzes 5410 interviews with young adults who provided detailed information on the relationships to their parents and up to four siblings. Focusing on four dimensions of relationships in families (contact, emotional closeness, intimacy, and conflict), hierarchical linear regression results provide general support for the assumption that inter- and intragenerational relations reinforce each other. We also find evidence for the existence of partially compensating relationships: more frequent intergenerational conflicts, for example, not only predict more frequent conflicts between siblings, but also greater intimacy. The results are in line with predictions derived from family systems theory as well as social learning and attachment theories.     

性别视角的农民工收入差异及影响因素分析——基于江苏省1012名农民工的问卷调查

根据江苏省1012名农民工的问卷调查资料,从性别视角对其进行了统计分析,分析结果表明：女农民工月收入、每小时工资、收入层次分布均低于男农民工;女农民工月收入不存在代际差异和文化程度差异;第一代农民工月收入存在性别差异;从事相同职业的农民工月收入存在性别差异。通过多元回归分析发现,影响女农民工每小时收入的主要有工作、生活负担和社会因素,农民工自身因素仅对男农民工收入有影响。