Moving Up or Falling Behind? Intergenerational Socioeconomic Progress among Children of Norwegian Immigrants

Are Skeie Hermansen, University of Oslo

Using Norwegian registry data, I study intergenerational social mobility among children of immigrants. I find that the degree of intergenerational persistence is slightly weaker among immigrants than in the native population, which indicates higher rates of social mobility among the children of immigrants. Generational progress is also reflected in the strongly reduced native-immigrant gaps in educational attainment and adult earnings among the immigrant offspring compared to the gaps found in the parental generation. The level of intergenerational catch-up is highest among children in national-origin groups characterised by the lowest parental socieconomic statuses. I also find that children of immigrants achieve higher socioeconomic attainments as adults when compared to children of natives with similar social origin and neighbourhood of residence in adolescence. Taken as a whole, these results suggest substantial intergenerational convergence in socioeconomic life chances between the children of immigrants and the children of the native born in Norway.