The Shifting Structure of Intragenerational Inequality

• In Event: 293 - Regular Session. Social Stratification and Inequality

Abstract

Traditional stratification and inequality research often treats individuals as single points of observation in the stratification system. This paper extends current scholarship on economic inequality by invoking the life course perspective to study the intragenerational pattern of wage inequality and how its structure has changed across cohorts. Using over 40 years of national representative data from CPS and PSID, I found that inequality increases over the life course for all cohorts born between 1941 and 1970. Further, cross-cohort comparison reveals that the amount of intragenerational growth of inequality has increased from earlier to later cohorts, suggesting that the labor market plays a more important role in shaping inequality in recent years. Microlevel decomposition analysis suggests that the relative importance of the underlying mechanisms for intragenerational inequality has also shifted: a growing amount of intragenerational growth of inequality is attributable to education-based cumulative advantage and residual inequality.

Author

• Siwei Cheng, New York University