Research project The shadow of peasant past: The impact of past generations on living conditions in Sweden
Living conditions and life chances tend to run in families. Individuals’ health, attainment of education, and labor market careers largely depend on their parents. This project traces inequality back not only to parents, but grandparents, great grandparents and beyond by linking historical censuses from 1880 to 1950 to modern registers 1960s to 2020.
This will allow us to analyze how inequality is maintained within families over 140 years. Matching of censuses will be done with probabilistic algorithms, whereas modern registers are straightforward to link using personnummer. We will devote the first and second years to linking and setting up data. In the third and fourth year, we will analyze transmission of inequality using both vertical models (inter- and multigenerational correlations) and horizontal models (sibling and higher-order cousin correlations).
The project will be based in Stockholm, and involves three researchers in different career phases, each with their distinct competence profiles that range from historical studies, over demography to studies of social mobility. We will have a reference group and collaborate with other research sites in both Sweden and internationally. By tracing the distribution of opportunities across vastly different policy landscapes, we will generate important knowledge about transmission mechanisms, and which historical policy shifts (if any) have been most instrumental in mitigating inequality transmission.
Project description
Studies of social mobility have focused on how inequality is transmitted from parents to children, but have recently also included the extended family of grandparents, aunt/uncles and similar kin. The findings suggest that inequality transmission is pervasive and created generations back, but due to data limitations, we do not know how far back. Our approach will be to trace inequality back not only to parents, but grandparents, great grandparents and beyond, and this requires large data over many generations, extending into the 19th century. Linking historical censuses from 1880 to 1950 to modern registers starting in the 1960s enables a complete population-level database of individuals’ kinship links and their living conditions between 1880 and 2020. We will create such a database to analyze how inequality is maintained within families over 140 years. We take a comprehensive and multidimensional view of advantage that also considers status distinctions such as ethnic or religious minority status. We define our main dimensions of advantage to be health and longevity, education, occupational standing, income and wealth, but we also examine demographic outcomes.
The project has three primary research objectives: (1) analyze to what extent living conditions and life-chances today depend on prior generations of kin; (2) analyze how characteristics of ancestors (occupation, immigrant, ethnic minority) influence on transmission of living conditions and life-chances; and (3) compare the development of multigenerational inequality over time. By tracing the distribution of opportunities across vastly different policy landscapes, we will generate important knowledge about transmission mechanisms, and which historical policy shifts (if any) have been most instrumental in mitigating inequality transmission.
Project members
Project managers
Martin Hällsten
Professor of Sociology
Members
Per Engzell
Researcher
Martin Kolk
Associate Professor
