The geography of intergenerational mobility in Norway: Labor market diversity, career opportunities, and gender

Abstract

We investigate intergenerational income mobility across labor market regions in Norway, looking at gender differences in response to industrial diversity. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the timing of regional migration, measured over the age spans 6−19 and 13−19 years. We make extensive use of fixed effects so that each region only affects adult outcomes, measured as income rank, through differences in exposure time. Our results reveal significantly larger exposure effects among daughters than among sons. The difference is particularly large when we contrast sons to fathers and daughters to mothers, but it is also apparent when we place sons and daughters, respectively, fathers and mothers, in the same distribution. We further find that industrial diversity, and thus the range of job opportunities, matters most during the teenage years. The patterns are, to some extent, detectible on maps, for example, with better mobility opportunities for men in coastal regions based on maritime and/or marine specialization. We conclude with assessments, a recommendation for regional policy, and some international considerations.