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Occupational Choice and Intergenerational Mobility of Welfare

Occupational Choice and Intergenerational Mobility of Welfare

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This NBER working paper investigates the intergenerational mobility of welfare, moving beyond just monetary income to include the non-monetary qualities of occupations. The authors construct an "intrinsic quality index" for jobs, encompassing factors like respect and learning opportunities, and find that children from richer families are more likely to choose occupations ranking high on this index. They propose and estimate a model showing that the "affordability channel"—where wealthier children can prioritize non-monetary job satisfaction over higher earnings—is the primary driver of this trend. Crucially, by incorporating this intrinsic job quality into measures of intergenerational persistence, the study concludes that traditional analyses focusing solely on earnings overestimate actual economic and social mobility.

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE AND THE INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY OF WELFARE Corina Boar Danial Lashkari Working Paper 29381 http://www.nber.org/papers/w29381 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 October 2021, Revised July 2022
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