New Occupations, Old Patterns? Intergenerational Mobility in a Restructuring Labor Market

• In Event: Social Mobility

Abstract

Occupational restructuring raises questions about whether previously observed patterns of intergenerational mobility continue to hold among newly emerging occupations. Most research on intergenerational mobility implicitly assumes that parents’ and children’s occupations can be classified into the same set of categories in a square matrix. This overlooks potentially important effects of occupational change on intergenerational association. Drawing on 11 nationally representative surveys linked to the 1980-2018 Census Alphabetical Index of Occupations, this study examines patterns of intergenerational mobility among occupations with high percentages of newly added micro-titles since 1980 (“new occupations”) and compares them to those among occupations with low new title shares (“old occupations”). We observe that workers in new occupations differ distinctly from those in old occupations in their parents' occupational background. Preliminary results from log-linear models indicate that the emergence of new occupations has reshaped pathways of intergenerational mobility without fundamentally altering the tendency for occupational inheritance. This study provides novel evidence on whether occupational restructuring in recent years has opened new pathways for upward mobility or reinforced the intergenerational reproduction of socioeconomic status.

Authors

• Kristin Liao, University of California-Los Angeles

• Xi Song, Columbia University

• Jennie E. Brand, University of California-Los Angeles

• Kathryn Kay O'Neill, University of Pennsylvania

• Zhenyuan Han, Columbia University