Absolute Mobility in Germany over the 20th century

Hertel, Florian R.

doi:10.1007/978-3-658-14785-3_8

Cited by 6 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Both the SOEP and the ALLBUS provide detailed information on the social class position and education of respondents and their parents, and the two datasets have been widely used for the analysis of intergenerational social mobility in Germany (see, e.g. Hertel, 2017; Pollak, 2000; Pollak and Müller, 2004). All results reported in the main body of the text are based on the SOEP data.…”

Section: Data and Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

Betthäuser

2019

Acta Sociologica

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Research on intergenerational social mobility tends to focus on examining the level of overall social fluidity in society. However, from a social justice perspective it can be argued that the type of social fluidity that matters most is upward mobility from the lowest rung of the social ladder. This article examines the labour market chances of children from parents in unskilled working-class positions, relative to children from skilled working-class and higher social class backgrounds, and how they have changed across four birth cohorts in post-WWII Germany. We find that individuals from unskilled working-class backgrounds have substantially lower labour market chances than individuals from skilled working-class backgrounds or higher social class backgrounds. Moreover, we find that the gap in labour market chances between individuals from unskilled working-class backgrounds and individuals from more advantaged backgrounds has not narrowed but, if anything, has widened across the four birth cohorts we examine. Our results suggest that an important factor underlying this sustained labour market inequality is a persistently high level of educational inequality between these groups.

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Section: Data and Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

Betthäuser

2019

Acta Sociologica

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“…For example, a meta-analysis of twin studies suggests the proportion of variance in educational attainment that can be explained by genetic effects (its heritability ) may have plateaued or slightly reduced over the twentieth century in the United States (Branigan et al 2013). Adkins and Vaisey (2009) argue that such a result could stem from the parallel growth of inequality (Saez and Zucman 2016) and the stagnation of social mobility (Hertel 2016), as these conditions may suppress genetic effects. Still others might expect the incredible expansion of schooling access across the twentieth century (Goldin and Katz 2010) to have offset any heritability-suppressing effects of rising inequality by removing constraints on educational attainment (for a detailed discussion, see Boardman et al 2011).…”

Section: Gene-by-environment Interactions and The Birth Cohortmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education, Smoking, and Cohort Change: Forwarding a Multidimensional Theory of the Environmental Moderation of Genetic Effects

et al. 2018

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We introduce a genetic correlation by environment interaction model [(rG)xE] which allows for social environmental moderation of the genetic relationship between two traits. To empirically demonstrate the significance of the (rG)xE perspective, we use genome wide information from respondents of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n = 8,181; birth years 1920–1959) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 4,347; birth years 1974–1983) to examine whether the genetic correlation (rG) between education and smoking has increased over historical time. Genetic correlation estimates (rGHRS = −0.357; rGAdd Health = −0.729) support this hypothesis. Using polygenic scores for educational attainment, we show that this is not due to latent indicators of intellectual capacity, and we highlight the importance of education itself as an explanation of the increasing genetic correlation. Analyses based on contextual variation the milieus of the Add Health respondents corroborate key elements of the birth cohort analyses. We argue that the increasing overlap with respect to genes associated with educational attainment and smoking is a fundamentally social process involving complex process of selection based on observable behaviors that may be linked to genotype.

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“…In order to do so, I employ data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; Goebel et al 2018 ). These data are widely used to study intergenerational mobility in Germany (e.g., Grätz and Pollak 2016 ; Hertel 2017 ; Müller and Pollak 2004 ). The sample I use includes male and female respondents born between 1970 and 1998.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I discuss four widely used practices in research on intergenerational mobility that lead to overcontrol and endogenous selection biases. I illustrate the practical consequences of these biases, to the degree that this is possible, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), a data set that is widely used to study intergenerational mobility in Germany (e.g., Grätz and Pollak 2016 ; Hertel 2017 ; Müller and Pollak 2004 ). The aim of my article is to bring the issues of overcontrol and endogenous selection biases to the attention of researchers who work on intergenerational mobility.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When less conditioning provides better estimates: overcontrol and endogenous selection biases in research on intergenerational mobility

Grätz

2022

Qual Quant

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The counterfactual approach to causality has become the dominant approach to understand causality in contemporary social science research. Whilst most sociologists are aware that unobserved, confounding variables may bias the estimates of causal effects (omitted variable bias), the threats of overcontrol and endogenous selection biases are less well known. In particular, widely used practices in research on intergenerational mobility are affected by these biases. I review four of these practices from the viewpoint of the counterfactual approach to causality and show why overcontrol and endogenous selection biases arise when these practices are implemented. I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) to demonstrate the practical consequences of these biases for conclusions about intergenerational mobility. I conclude that future research on intergenerational mobility should reflect more upon the possibilities of bias introduced by conditioning on variables.

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Absolute Mobility in Germany over the 20th century

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

Education, Smoking, and Cohort Change: Forwarding a Multidimensional Theory of the Environmental Moderation of Genetic Effects

When less conditioning provides better estimates: overcontrol and endogenous selection biases in research on intergenerational mobility

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