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Intergenerational Persistence of Skills and Socioeconomic Status

Author

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  • Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez

    (El Colegio de México)

Abstract

This paper describes how the socioeconomic status (SES) of parents relates to the formation and development of the skills and preferences of their teenage children, which have proven to be key to understanding differences in life outcomes. The study used data from a novel survey, conducted in Mexico, that recorded cognitive and non-cognitive skills and social preferences of both parents and children. It analyzed the relationship between the SES of parents and their children’s skills, and found that children’s skills were consistently related to parental skills, and that intergenerational persistence of skills was higher for cognitive than for non-cognitive skills or social preferences. It also found that the cognitive skills gap between the first and fifth quintile of SES was related mainly to characteristics like parents’ own skills, years of schooling, and aspirations for their children, but that these parental characteristics were less important in explaining non-cognitive skills and preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez, 2018. "Intergenerational Persistence of Skills and Socioeconomic Status," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 509-523, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:39:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10834-018-9574-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10834-018-9574-7
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    Cited by:

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    2. Shyamal Chowdhury & Matthias Sutter & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2018. "Evaluating Intergenerational Persistence of Economic Preferences: A Large Scale Experiment with Families in Bangladesh," CESifo Working Paper Series 6914, CESifo.
    3. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    4. Raúl Claver & Raquel Ortega-Lapiedra, 2024. "Measuring Education Changes Between Generations: Evidence for 52 Developing Countries from 1870 to 2010," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 965-983, December.
    5. Xiaohui Sophie Li, 2021. "What Impacts Young Generations’ School/College Education Through the Lens of Family Economics? A Review on JFEI Publications in the Past Ten Years," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 118-123, July.
    6. Sandra Ferrando-Latorre & Jorge Velilla & Raquel Ortega, 2019. "Intergenerational Transmission of Entrepreneurial Activity in Spanish Families," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 390-407, September.
    7. Manuela Stranges, 2022. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Female Labour Force Participation by Gender among Native and Immigrant Europeans: A Focus on Religion," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 774-798, December.

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