Trends in Brother Correlations in Class and Incomes in Finland: A Comparison of Cohorts Born in 1932-62

Jani Erola, Turku School of Economics
Juho Harkonen, Yale University
Markus Jantti, Åbo Akademi University

Recent assessments of cross-national and cross-cohort comparisons of intergenerational mobility have found intriguing differences in income and class mobility. For example, the United States seems to be an open society when it comes to class mobility but a rigid one in terms of income mobility. Furthermore, recent analyses have shown differences in trends in income and class mobility in Britain. In this paper, we compare trends in brother resemblance in class and incomes in Finland across cohorts born in 1932-62. We use population register data from the Finnish Census Panel to calculate brother correlations for class and incomes. We also compare brothers using loglinear models. We find diverging trends in brother resemblance in class and incomes, suggesting that intergenerational mobility in and family background effects on incomes and class may be governed by different processes.