Movilidad Intergeneracional

OECD Journal: Economic Studies Volume 2010 © OECD 2010

Intergenerational Social Mobility in OECD Countries*
by
Orsetta Causa and Åsa Johansson

This paper assesses recent patterns of intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries and examines the role that public policies can play. It shows that the relationship between parental or socio-economic background and offspringeducational and wage outcomes is positive and significant in practically all countries for which evidence is available. Intergenerational social mobility is measured by several different indicators, since no single indicator provides a complete picture. However, one pattern that emerges is of a group of countries, southern European countries and Luxembourg, which appears to rank as relatively immobile onmost indicators, while another group, the Nordic countries, is found to be more mobile. Furthermore, public policies such as education and early childcare play a role in explaining observed differences in intergenerational social mobility across countries. JEL classification: J60, J62, I20, H23, C20, C21 Keywords: intergenerational wage mobility, intergenerational education mobility, education,public policies

* Causa (e-mail: orsetta.causa@oecd.org) and Johansson (e-mail: asa.johansson@oecd.org), OECD Economics Department. The authors would like to thank Anna d’Addio, Sveinbjörn Blöndal, Jørgen Elmeskov, Bo Hansson, Stephen Machin, Marc Pearson, Giuseppe Nicoletti, Jean-Luc Schneider and Rolph van der Hoeven for their valuable comments and Chatherine Chapuis for excellent statisticalwork, as well as Irene Sinha for excellent editorial support. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or its member countries.

1

INTERGENERATIONAL SOCIAL MOBILITY IN OECD COUNTRIES

T

his paper assesses recent patterns in intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries, examining the role that policies can playin affecting such mobility. Intergenerational social mobility refers to the relationship between the socio-economic status of parents and the status their children will attain as adults. A society can be more or less mobile depending on whether this relationship is, on average, looser or tighter: in a relatively immobile society an individual’s wage, education or occupation will tend to be stronglyrelated to those of his/her parents. Intergenerational mobility reflects a host of factors, including inherited traits, social norms and public policies that may influence the individual’s willingness and ability to seize economic opportunities. These factors are difficult to unbundle precisely and, as regards norms and policies, to some extent reflect societal choices over institutional settingsas well as differences in choices over redistribution and equity, which are likely to be valued differently across countries. Therefore, no “benchmark” mobility level can be identified in cross-country comparisons. Nonetheless, removing policy-related obstacles to social mobility can be advocated on equity and efficiency grounds because it can improve equality of economic opportunities and theway a society allocates human resources. Promoting intergenerational social mobility means providing individuals with the same opportunities ex ante, even though it does not imply that all individuals should achieve the same outcomes ex post. Furthermore, policies that affect social mobility are closely related to growth. The ability of an economy to allocate human resources to their best use canhave important effects on economic performance. However, trade-offs can exist between policies that remove obstacles to social mobility and those that strengthen other drivers of growth. Therefore, understanding the role played by public policies vis-à-vis social mobility can help design policies that enhance equality of opportunity without adversely effecting economic growth. This could even...