Intergenerational mobility of sons and daughters: evidence from nineteenth-century West Flanders

Abstract

Research on the intergenerational inheritance of occupational attainment has been restricted to sons for a long time. This is remarkable, given the ubiquity of historical settings where female labor force participation was high. This study of civil marriage certificates in nineteenth-century West Flanders investigates a comprehensive sample covering the economic activities not only of fathers and sons but also of mothers and daughters. We find that daughters were more mobile than sons. Daughters, however, enjoyed less growth in terms of intergenerational mobility against the background of a slowly industrializing economy.

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

“…The first chapter is joint work with Erik Buyst (KU Leuven) and was published in the European Review of Economic History (Delabastita and Buyst 2021). Chapter 1 takes the first and crucial step in a dissertation attempting to explain historical labor market inequalities: the quantitative reconstruction of the latter.…”