Intergenerational Economic Mobility Between Mothers and Children: Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Abstract

Objectives This study focuses on the impact of race and ethnicity on intergenerational mobility between mothers and children. Background Most studies have examined intergenerational mobility between fathers and their children. Racial and ethnic disparities might explain the high rates of intergenerational inequality in mobility. Methods The current study used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 for Children and Young Adults. The two data sets were merged based on mother and child's identification number. The final sample consisted of 1,245 non‐Black/non‐Hispanic, 740 Black, and 538 Hispanic dyads. Multiple linear regression and logistic regression analyses were conducted. Results There are ethnic and racial disparities in net worth and poverty among mothers. Black and Hispanic mothers were less likely to accumulate net worth compared with non‐Black/non‐Hispanic mothers, and they were also at greater risk of being in poverty compared with non‐Black/non‐Hispanic mothers. For intergenerational economic mobility, net worth and not living in poverty across mothers were associated with higher income among young adult children. Black race moderated the relationship between maternal net worth and young adult children's income. Conclusion A new perspective is necessary to explore intergenerational economic mobility, considering relations between mothers and children rather than fathers and children. Implications Eliminating discrimination in the labor market is critical to addressing racial and ethnic disparities in economic resources. Service programs to help Black women with children to save money or increase their job opportunities should be in place to improve their potential for upward economic mobility across generations.

Intergenerational mobility and racial inequality: The case for a more holistic approach

“…Hilger (2015) indicates that Black parent‐child pairs had an elasticity of about 0.36 while White parent‐child pairs had an elasticity of just over 0.4. These education mobility estimates likely reflect what Lee and Sun (2020, p. 929) conclude based on their research, “first and second generations among both Blacks and Hispanics had more difficulty accessing and fewer opportunities for higher education than did non‐Black/non‐Hispanic children”. Indeed, scholars have stressed the role of education as a primary pathway through which intergenerational transmission of mobility occurs (Jerrim & Macmillan, 2015; Song & Mare, 2017).…”

Social Mobility and Vocational Outcomes: A Psychology of Working Perspective

“…Social mobility is a challenging construct to be conceptualized and assessed, and it is mostly operationalized with objective and subjective indicators. For example, sociologists have operationalized social mobility as changes in objective socioeconomic (SES) indicators, such as changes in income, education, or occupational prestige (e.g., Becchetti & Rossetti, 2009), or categorized job or income statuses to show types of social mobility (e.g., Lee & Sun, 2020; Wegener, 1991; Wilson & Roscigno, 2010; Zhang et al, 2020). Although this approach is also common within social psychology (Destin, 2019; Kraus et al, 2019), using objective indicators might limit an understanding of more nuanced experiences of social mobility.…”