This study aims to quantify intergenerational mobility in the early 20th century U.S. by creating a new data resource that can characterize intergenerational income and education mobility in all U.S. states. The study's authors will work to generate large enough samples to allow for correlation between early 20th century policies, area characteristics, and mobility for the early 20th century, similar to Raj Chetty et al.’s Opportunity Atlas for the modern period. The new dataset will aim to provide a more complete understanding of intergenerational mobility by gender, race, and ethnicity.

Toney will use a two- and three-generation sample from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to construct measures of the life course of children. Measures will include the income, wealth, and neighborhood conditions when children are living with their parents and income as the children form their own households. These measures, along with panel regressions and decompositions, will help establish better estimates of the role parental and grandparental wealth plays in income mobility.

When recessions occur, minority and younger workers experience the most significant impacts. Smythe will study how recessions experienced during young adulthood affect future educational and labor market outcomes and the resulting impact on long-run racial inequality. Using county-level/local area data linked with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 surveys, she will document the role recessions play in perpetuating racial economic inequality and the long-term effects of persistent racial differences in the economic opportunities of youths.

Selective public high schools (SPHS) are considered an engine of upward mobility, but there is concern about both the lack of underrepresented students in SPHSs and their effectiveness in improving student outcomes. Shi and Singleton will develop a research partnership with a SPHS and link a decade of applicant data with statewide records. This dataset will allow them to evaluate long-term outcomes, such as college completion, and examine the factors contributing to the underrepresentation of certain groups at SPHSs.

The increase in immigrant students in the U.S. has generated debate on the effects of immigration on education and on the perceived costs that immigrants may impose on schools, local government, and educational outcomes of U.S.-born students. Yet there is limited research on the effects of immigrant students on the educational outcomes of native peers. Economist Paola Sapienza and colleagues will examine educational outcomes when native students are exposed to immigrant peers.

Economist Nathan Nunn and colleagues will examine the role of upward mobility among immigrants in the past as a predictor of contemporary perceptions of mobility and redistributive preferences. They will assess the extent to which preferences for redistribution in a county today are related to the average immigrant population in that county during the 1850-1920 “Age of Mass Migration.” The PIs will conduct a new, nationally-representative survey measuring individual perceptions of mobility, preferences for redistribution policy, and ancestry.

In 2016, only 13 states allowed pregnant women to access prenatal care regardless of their immigration status through either a state-funded program or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. As a result, many immigrant women do not have access to preconception care, prenatal care, or both. Perinatal epidemiologist Teresa Janevic and colleagues will estimate the effect of exclusion from preconception and prenatal Medicaid coverage on immigrant women’s access to prenatal care and adverse pregnancy events.