Most intergenerational social mobility studies are based upon retrospective data, in which samples of individuals report socioeconomic information about their parents. Such an approach suffers from a retrospective reporting bias, because early generations can be recalled only if they have offspring, and those with more offspring are more likely to be recalled. This thesis discusses the conceptual and practical advantages of using an alternative, prospective approach, which examines intergenerational mobility by following a sample of respondents and their progeny. This prospective approach is especially useful for multigenerational mobility analysis that is rising in the field of mobility studies in recent years. We also propose an adjustment method that corrects the retrospective reporting bias in retrospective data, and thus permits them to be used in prospective intergenerational analyses that incorporate both demographic and mobility effects. We illustrate the adjustment method using both two-generation and multigenerational models based on simulated data and empirical data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results suggest that our adjustment retrospective method removes more than 95% of the bias in the prospective analysis based on retrospective data.

Transmission of status across generations is a central concern in studies of social stratification and mobility. Most sociological research takes a two-generation approach to understand social mobility from parents to children. Not until recently did mobility researchers acknowledge the role of grandparents, who have become more involved in grandchildren’s lives because of increasing human longevity, declining fertility, and the growing number of single-parent families. My approach to multigenerational social mobility in this dissertation looks at the importance of grandparents, but also looks beyond the grandparent generation including great grandparents, relatives in kin networks, and even more remote ancestors. The three empirical chapters take into account long family histories of social status that span from three to more than ten generations. Findings from these chapters show that individuals’ social success is not predetermined by their ancestry, but it nevertheless is influenced by ancestry.