Trends in Intergenerational Income Mobility and Income Inequality in Canada

The study of the intergenerational transmission of income is perhaps more relevant for understanding trends in inequality over time. How is social status reproduced from one generation to the next? In this paper, administrative Canadian tax data are exploited to compute measures of intergenerational income mobility at the national, provincial and territorial levels. This work provides detailed descriptive evidence on trends in social mobility. Five cohorts of Canadians, born between 1963 and 1985, are observed as teens living with their parents and again as adults in their late 20s and early 30s.