Volume 54, Issue 6 pp. 971-983
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The intergenerational transmission of income mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters: The mediating role of their daughters' educational attainment

Jaewon Lee

Corresponding Author

Jaewon Lee

Assistant Professor

Department of Social Welfare, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea

Correspondence

Jaewon Lee, Department of Social Welfare, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Michuhol-gu, Incheon 22212, South Korea.

Email: [email protected]

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Jennifer Allen

Jennifer Allen

Doctoral Student

School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

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First published: 21 July 2020
Citations: 2

Abstract

This study examines whether the daughters' educational attainment mediates the intergenerational transmission of economic mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters. To create mother–daughter dyads, two data sets were combined: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 for Children and Young Adults (NLSY79 CY). A total of 2,456 dyads were included for analysis. We used a mediation model to explore the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income. Mothers' income was associated with their young adult daughters' educational attainment and income. The mediation model indicated partial mediation of the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income via their young adult daughters' educational attainment. Addressing issues of income inequality among mothers may serve as a buffer against the low upward mobility across generations for their young adult daughters raised by low-income mothers. It is imperative to provide programs and financial assistance for mothers to bolster their income and thereby their daughters' educational attainment and income in young adulthood and therefore improve economic mobility from mothers to daughters.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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