Relative and Absolute Income Mobility Variation in the United States: 1968-1997

Decades of literature have attempted to estimate intergenerational income mobility levels in the United States, but less research has examined how income mobility varies by gender, race, and education backgrounds. In this study, I use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and multivariate OLS regressions with interactions to estimate gender, race, and college education effects on mobility. I find that females, especially those with low childhood incomes are less mobile than males. Blacks are less mobile than whites, and this disparity persists across all levels of childhood income. People with lower education levels are less mobile than those with higher education levels, especially among those with low childhood incomes. In fully adjusted models with state fixed effects, disparities in mobility by gender and race do not vary significantly by level of education attained. This analysis indicates that being college educated contributes to mobility, but college education does not differentially benefit females or blacks. Strategies other than college education may be needed to address genderrelated and race-related disparities in income mobility.