African American Intergenerational Economic Mobility since 1880
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 14,
no. 3, July 2022
(pp. 84-117)
Abstract
We document the intergenerational mobility of Black and White American men from 1880 through 2000 by building new historical datasets for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and combining them with modern data to cover the middle and late twentieth century. We find large disparities in mobility, with White children having far better chances of escaping the bottom of the distribution than Black children in every generation. This mobility gap was more important in proximately determining each generation's racial gap than was the initial gap in parents' economic status.Citation
Collins, William J., and Marianne H. Wanamaker. 2022. "African American Intergenerational Economic Mobility since 1880." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14 (3): 84-117. DOI: 10.1257/app.20170656Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J62 Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
- N31 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
- N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
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