What More Than Parental Income, Education and Occupation? An Exploration of What Swedish Siblings Get from Their Parents

Abstract

Abstract Sibling correlations are broader measures of the impact of family and community influences on individual outcomes than intergenerational correlations. Estimates of such correlations in income show that more than half of the family and community influences that siblings share are uncorrelated with parental income. We employ a data set with rich family information to explore what factors in addition to traditional measures of parents’ socio-economic status can explain sibling similarity in long-run income. Measures of family structure and social problems account for very little of sibling similarities beyond that already accounted for by income, education and occupation. However, when we add indicators of parental involvement in schoolwork, parenting practices and maternal attitudes, the explanatory power of our variables increases from about one-quarter (using only traditional measures of parents’ socio-economic status) to nearly two-thirds.