Social Mobility in Multiple Generations

Most research on intergenerational processes focuses on two generation connections between individuals and their children or parents. This research ignores grandparent influences and longer legacy effects. Mare’s 2010 PAA Presidential Address suggested mechanisms through which multigenerational effects may occur and are most likely to be strongest. This paper examines various types of multigenerational influence: (1) effects of socioeconomic positions of grandparent and even more remote ancestors on the standing of individuals; (2) legacy effects of extreme advantage and disadvantage many generations in the past; (3) multigenerational effects on demographic behavior itself; (4) heterogeneous multigenerational effects in populations that contain more than one social mobility regime; and (5) long run multigenerational effects that result from mobility-fertility interactions in population dynamics. We illustrate these effects through analyses of genealogical data from the Qing Dynasty Imperial Lineage and from population registry data for Liaoning, China over the past several centuries. Our results suggest that multigenerational influence is much more multi-faceted than previous speculations and empirical investigations have implied.