The Multigenerational Demography of Social Mobility

Most demographic research on intergenerational processes focuses on the associations between the numbers and characteristics of individuals in successive generations, and ignores multigenerational (Non-Markovian) aspects of intergenerational mobility. These aspects include both the net effects of grandparents and early ancestors on individuals and also other types of path-dependent sequences of family characteristics. The importance of multigenerational effects may be greatest among the very poor and the very wealthy, and raises the possibility that our standard approaches to the study of social mobility are excessively governed by the perspective of the late 20th Century middle class. Both Markovian and Non-Markovian views of social mobility are further complicated by the interdependence of mobility and differential fertility, mortality, migration, and marriage.