The intergenerational transmission of social and economic status captures an important aspect of inequality, one that tends to perpetuate inequality across generations. Economics has a large literature devoted to estimating the correlation between the economic status of parents and that of their children. However, most studies address the transmission of status from father to son. Those that include daughters examine only the latter half of the twentieth century. The reason for this is that the historical data sets used to address the intergenerational transmission of economic status rely on linked census samples. Women can rarely be successfully linked, because they marry and change their last names. This doctoral dissertation research will utilize a newly created data set, the 1880 Cherokee Census, to create a linked sample of women and men from 1880 to 1900. The linked sample would contain information both occupation and agricultural information. This data would allow the correlation between a woman's father's occupation in 1880 and that of her husband in 1900 to be estimated. By repeating the analysis for men, new insights can be gained into the relative levels of intergenerational ability available to both men and women. Furthermore, the data will be compared to modern data to examine the time trend in intergenerational mobility for both men and women.
This project will create the first linked census sample of women. The method developed for linking the data can be used to create other linked data sets. Second, the data created will also be available to other researchers who study the inter-generational transmission of wealth from men to their daughters. Linked historical census samples have been successfully used to broaden the understanding of the economic status of men in the nineteenth century. This type of analysis would finally be available for the study of women and could greatly increase the current knowledge of the economic history of women. Understanding the process of transmission of wealth from fathers to their daughters would help policy makers in addressing the persistent gender wealth inequality. Furthermore, by employing undergraduate research assistants, this project will give students an opportunity to observe and participate in research.
