The Effects of the Great Depression on Children’s Intergenerational Mobility

Martha J. Bailey; Peter Z. Lin; A. R. Shariq Mohammed; Alexa Prettyman

doi:10.7758/RSF.2024.10.1.02

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Great Depression in shaping the intergenerational mobility of some of the most upwardly mobile cohorts of the twentieth century. Using newly linked census and vital records from the Longitudinal, Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-database, we examine the occupational and educational mobility of more than 265,000 sons and daughters born in Ohio and North Carolina. We find that the deepest and most protracted downturn in U.S. history had limited effects on sons’ intergenerational mobility but reduced daughters’ intergenerational mobility.

© 2024 Russell Sage Foundation. Bailey, Martha J., Peter Z. Lin, A. R. Shariq Mohammed, and Alexa Prettyman 2024. “The Effects of the Great Depression on Children’s Intergenerational Mobility.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 10(1): 32–56. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2024.10.1.02. The LIFE-M project was generously supported by the National Science Foundation (SMA 1539228), the National Institute on Aging (R21 AG05691201), the University of Michigan Population Studies Center Small Grants (R24 HD041028), the Michigan Center for the Demography of Aging (MiCDA, P30 AG012846-21), the University of Michigan Associate Professor Fund, and the Michigan Institute on Research and Teaching in Economics (MITRE). We gratefully acknowledge the use of the Population Studies Center’s services and facilities at the University of Michigan (P2CHD041028) and the California Center for Population Research at UCLA (P2CHD041022). Direct correspondence to: Martha J. Bailey, at marthabailey{at}g.ucla.edu; Peter Z. Lin, at zhixian.lin{at}wku.edu, Western Kentucky University, United States; A. R. Shariq Mohammed, at ab.mohammed{at}northeastern.edu, Northeastern University, United States; Alexa Prettyman, at cprettyman{at}towson.edu, Towson University, United States.

Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

View Full Text