Intergenerational socioeconomic mobility: A comparison of sons and daughters
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Abstract
Studies agree that fathers influence the socioeconomic statuses of their children. However, not many studies address whether fathers influence their sons and daughters similarly. Four groups of factors - family background, individual, structural, and gender - contribute to the understanding of socioeconomic status and mobility in general by focusing on different aspects of the development of a person’s socioeconomic status. This study uses a composite model which includes those four areas to examine the differences in intergenerational socioeconomic mobility for sons and daughters. Secondary data analysis was conducted using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2004) data. Bivariate analysis showed that fathers had a relatively equal influence on daughters across the socioeconomic distribution, but fathers have more influence on sons at the top and bottom of the distribution. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression showed that an increase in fathers’ socioeconomic status will raise children’s socioeconomic status, net of other factors; but sons benefit from this increase more than daughters, net of other factors. Finally, fathers’ socioeconomic status explained more of the variance for sons’ socioeconomic status than for daughters’.