Intergenerational mobility of earnings and income in Japan

This paper presents estimates on the intergenerational mobility of economic status in Japan. We estimate the intergenerational elasticity of the earnings and income of offspring with respect to parental income using microdata from the 1993-2004 rounds of the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers. The estimated intergenerational elasticity using predicted parental income is 0.41-0.46 for married sons, 0.30-0.38 for married daughters, and marginally less than 0.30 for single daughters. A downward trend in elasticity is also observed. Quantile regression does not suggest any particular relation between elasticity and quantiles. A nonlinear analysis of the relation between parental log income and log earnings of offspring illustrates an S-shaped relation for married sons and single daughters, and a linear relation for married daughters.