Does Opportunity Skip Generations? Reassessing Evidence From Sibling and Cousin Correlations.

ABSTRACT: Sibling (cousin) correlations are empirically straightforward: they capture the degree to which siblings' (cousins') socioeconomic outcomes are similar. At face value, these quantities seem to summarize something about how families constrain opportunity. Their meaning, however, is complicated. One empirical set of sibling and cousin correlations can be generated from a multitude of distinct theoretical processes. I illustrate this problem in the context of multigenerational mobility: the relationship between the incomes of an ancestor and a descendant separated by several generations in a family. When cousins' outcomes are similar (an empirical fact), prior authors have favored the particular theoretical interpretation that extended kin affect life chances through pathways not involving th

SUBMITTER: Lundberg I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7472593 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature