Parole chiave
background familiare
retribuzioni
istruzione
abilità non osservabili
connessioni sociali
Italia
Come citare
Accepted 2018-07-11
Published 2018-10-16
Abstract
Gli autori indagano i meccanismi alla base del processo di trasmissione intergenerazionale della diseguaglianza in Italia facendo uso dei dati forniti dalla Survey on Household Income and Wealth della Banca d’Italia nel periodo 2000-2016. Approssimando il background familiare con l’istruzione dei padri, si rileva che un anno in più di istruzione di questi è associato ad una crescita del 3,6% delle retribuzioni dei figli. In contrasto con l’idea diffusa che la trasmissione intergenerazionale dipenda esclusivamente dall’investimento in istruzione, un ampio vantaggio (+1,8% per ogni anno di istruzione dei padri) persiste quando nelle stime si tiene conto del titolo di studio dei figli e di altre caratteristiche osservabili del loro percorso di istruzione e il vantaggio rimane significativo (+1,1%) quando si controlla anche per una serie di caratteristiche dell’attività lavorativa. Dal confronto fra le diverse waves di SHIW emerge inoltre che i vantaggi di background non si sono ridotti nel corso del tempo.
Classificazione JEL: D31, J24, J31, J62
Parole chiave: diseguaglianza intergenerazionale; background familiare; retribuzioni; istruzione; abilità non osservabili; connessioni sociali.
The association between fathers’ characteristics and children’s earnings in Italy: does only education matter?
This work analyses mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of inequality in Italy by exploiting the waves from 2000 to 2016 of the Bank of Italy’s Survey on Household Income and Wealth. Using fathers’ education as a proxy of parental background, we show that 1-year increase in fathers’ education is associated with a 3.6% increase in children’s earnings. Contrary to the widespread idea that the intergenerational transmission is only related to parents’ investment in their children’s education, large background-related advantages (+1.8% for each year of parental education) persist when we control for children’s education and other observables related to their human capital. Moreover, background-related advantages remain large and statistically significant (+1.1%) when we also control for children’s occupation. Furthermore, we find that our measure of intergenerational association has not declined.
JEL Classification: D31, J24, J31, J62.
Keywords: intergenerational inequality; parental background; earnings; education; unobservable skills; social networks.
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