Does Regime Change Affect Intergenerational Mobility? Evidence from German Reunification

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2234811
AutoresMichael Grätz (0000-0001-7920-1021, Institut des sciences sociales, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen37
Número3
Páginas465-481
Fecha de publicación2021-05-25
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcaa061
OpenAlexW2973186649
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas49

This study uses the natural experiment of German reunification and a difference-in-differences approach to test whether the political and economic transition in East Germany in 1990 affected intergenerational occupational and educational mobility. Results obtained using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study show that German reunification did neither strongly affect occupational nor educational mobility. These findings are robust to operationalizing social origin in various ways. Admittedly, reunification may have had small or long-term effects on occupational and educational mobility that cannot be uncovered with the data and research design employed in this study. However, the findings rule out that there were large, short- or medium-term effects of German reunification on intergenerational mobility. These findings are at odds with theories that argue that institutional change has strong, immediate causal effects on intergenerational mobility

Affect (linguistics) · Demographic economics · Econometrics · Economics · Geography · German · German reunification · Natural experiment · Occupational mobility · Odds · Operationalization · Panel data · Political science · Politics · Social mobility · Social science · Sociology · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Medicine · Psychology