Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14491
Authors: Gregory Clark; Andrew Leigh; Mike Pottenger
Abstract: There is longstanding pride among Australians that by throwing off the social class demarcations that defined the ossified parent society, England, they created an open, socially mobile society. The paper tests this belief by estimating long run social mobility rates in Australia 1870-2017, using the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from electoral rolls 1903-1980, and records of degrees awarded by Melbourne and Sydney universities 1852-2017. Status persistence was strong throughout, with an intergenerational correlation of occupational or educational status of 0.7-0.8, and no change over time. Mobility rates were also just as low for mobility rates within UK immigrants and their descendants, so ethnic effects explain none of the immobility. The much less pronounced class divisions of Australia compared to England did not enhance social mobility. One sign of apparent enhanced Australian social mobility – the fact that surnames associated with convicts already had a modest elite status by 1870 – seems to derive from convicts transported to Australia from England being positively selected in terms of human capital.
Keywords: intergenerational social mobility
JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| social mobility rates in Australia (J62) | social mobility rates in England (J62) |
| intergenerational correlation of occupational or educational status in Australia (J19) | low mobility rates in Australia (J62) |
| ethnic factors (J15) | social mobility in Australia (J62) |
| class divisions in Australia (J15) | social mobility in Australia (J62) |
| convict surnames having elite status (K14) | positive selection of human capital among transported convicts (J24) |