1 option
Mothers, Schools, and the Making of American Human Capital Mobility / Lukas Althoff, Harriet M. Brookes Gray, Hugo Reichardt.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Althoff, Lukas.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w35152.
- NBER working paper series no. w35152
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2026.
- Summary:
- How did the US become a land of opportunity? Previous historical research on intergenerational mobility has focused on father-son income correlations, masking the role of mothers. We introduce a new mobility measure that incorporates both parents' human capital, develop a latent variable method leveraging literacy as a proxy, and construct a representative linked panel that includes women. We find that intergenerational mobility--in both human capital and income--rose sharply from the 19th to the 20th century. Initially, maternal human capital was most predictive of children's outcomes. However, as schooling expanded, this reliance declined and intergenerational mobility rose. America's investment in mass education has therefore been central to its rise as a mobile society.
- Notes:
- April 2026.
- Print version record
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.