Data and Code for: Careers and Intergenerational Income Mobility

This paper uses Census microdata linked with tax records to quantify the contribution of occupations to intergenerational income mobility. We document substantial segregation into occupations by parental income. Children of high-income parents are significantly more likely to pursue high-paying and more desirable occupations. Since parents may pass on their occupations to their children, we further describe patterns of intergenerational occupational following and show they vary substantially across occupations, with low-income occupations showing more persistence across generations on average. Yet, occupational persistence plays a limited role for income mobility, explaining only 10\% of the income rank-rank relationship.

本文利用关联税收记录的人口普查微观数据（Census microdata），量化了职业对代际收入流动性的贡献。我们发现，按父母收入水平划分的职业隔离程度相当显著；高收入父母的子女更有可能从事高薪且更受青睐的职业。鉴于父母可能将自身职业传递给子女，我们进一步描述了代际职业传承模式，并表明这些模式在不同职业间存在显著差异——平均而言，低收入职业的代际持续性更强。然而，职业持续性对收入流动性的作用有限，仅能解释收入 rank-rank 关系的10%。