Nº 203 (October, 2016). Maribel Jiménez. 

The main objective of this research is to estimate and analyze the temporal changes in income mobility between generations in Argentina. For this, the concept of equality of opportunity is considered which offers a natural approach to evaluate the processes of intergenerational mobility (IM). In this context, the importance of the existence of intergenerational income mobility is not that the movements of income between parents and children are intrinsically valuable but is expected to help to reduce the negative effects of disparities in initial endowments or future expected earnings. Since there are no surveys covering long-term information on both children and their fathers’ income in Argentina, the empirical strategy implemented is to use two separate samples with information to predict the income of the parents in the past. The main sources of information used are the Social Development Survey 1997 (DHS), the Perception of Social Plans Survey (PSPS) 2007 and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2009. The three surveys contain retrospective information on some socioeconomic characteristics of parents of adult surveyed. The results show a significant increase in the average intergenerational mobility between 1997 and 2007 but not between the first year and 2010. But these temporary changes in average levels of income persistence between parents and children are not appreciated at all quantile of the income distribution. Furthermore, the observed increase in the average level of MII from 1997 to 2007 does not appear to have involved an improvement in terms of equality of opportunity in Argentina.

JEL Code: J62, D31