The intergenerational income mobility of Canadian men

by Miles Corak and Andrew Heisz
Family and Labour Studies Division and Business and Labour Market Analysis Division
Analytical Studies Branch research paper series, No. 089

In this paper we use administrative data associated with the tax system to: (1) document the extent of intergenerational income mobility among Canadian men; and (2) estimate the income disadvantage (in adulthood) of being raised in a low income household.

We find that there is considerable intergenerational income mobility in Canada among middle income earners, but that the inheritance of economic status is significant at both the very top and very bottom of the income distribution. About one-third of those in the bottom quartile were raised by fathers who occupied the same position in the income distribution. In fact, the income advantage of someone who had a father in the top decile over someone who had a father in the bottom decile is in the order of 40%.

We also discuss some of the policy implications of these findings, as well as some of their limitations and the directions implied for future research.

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