Premium
INTERGENERATIONAL INCOME MOBILITY IN URBAN CHINA
Author(s) -
GONG HONGE,
LEIGH ANDREW,
MENG XIN
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4991.2012.00495.x
Subject(s) - economics , income elasticity of demand , china , income distribution , demographic economics , position (finance) , distribution (mathematics) , labour economics , inequality , geography , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , finance
This paper estimates the intergenerational income elasticity for urban China, paying careful attention to the potential biases induced by income fluctuations and life cycle effects. Our preferred estimate indicates that the intergenerational income elasticity for father–son is 0.63. This suggests that while China has experienced rapid growth of absolute incomes, the relative position of children in the distribution is largely related to their parents' incomes. By investigating possible causal channels, we find that parental education plays one of the most important roles in transmitting economic status from parents to children.