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Download the Paper (183 K, PDF file) - November 19, 1999 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
This paper uses the General Social survey and the comparison between the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men and of Youth to measure how returns to young men's family background have changed from the late 1970's to the late 1980's and early 1990's. Coming from a wealthy family and having a well-educated father who worked in a high-prestige occupation were much more powerful predictors of a young man's success in the later period. In contrast, maternal education was less important in determining a young man's income and educational attainment. Rising returns to education coupled with a constant relation between family background and education explains most of the rising importance of family background.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
David I. Levine, "Choosing the Right Parents: Changes in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality Between the 1970s and the early 1990s" (November 19, 1999). Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Working Paper Series. Paper iirwps-072-99.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/iir/iirwps/iirwps-072-99