Carina Mood’s research while affiliated with Stockholm University and other places

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. Yet, research on trends in intergenerational income mobility finds conflicting results. To better understand this variation, we adopt a multiverse approach that estimates trends over 82,944 different definitions of income mobility, varying how and for whom income is measured. Our analysis draws on comprehensive register data for Swedish cohorts born 1958 to 1977 and their parents. We find that income mobility has declined, but for reasons neglected by previous research: improved gender equality in the labor market raises intergenerational persistence in women’s earnings and the household incomes of both men and women. Dominant theories that focus on childhood investments have blinded researchers to this development. Methodologically, we show how multiverse analysis can be used with abduction—inference to the best explanation—to improve theory-building in social science.

In many Western countries, researchers have documented ambitious educational choices among students of immigrant origin, for example, the tendency to choose academically more demanding routes than others at given levels of school achievement (e.g. grades, GPA). While this may indicate integration, some warn against an ‘immigrant optimism trap’, because choosing more demanding tracks at lower levels of GPA may increase risks of non-completion. Using longitudinal Swedish population data (n ≈ 90,000), we estimate an upper secondary ‘ethnic completion gap’ of 12 per cent to the detriment of students of immigrant background. We then address the ‘trap hypothesis’ via two analyses. The first shows that if students of immigration background would make similar educational choices as other students at the same GPA, the completion gap would shrink by 3.4 percentage points. The second analysis, based on simulations, suggests that restricting admission to academic programmes based on prior GPA, would lead to a massive relocation of low- and mid-GPA students to—usually less demanding—vocational programmes, but would only reduce the completion gap by 2.2 percentage points. These changes must be considered marginal in view of the substantial restrictions of choice that either of these measures would entail. We conclude that completion gaps are not primarily a result of unfounded immigrant optimism, and that optimistic choices are likely to be a net positive for integration by improving the chances of immigrant youth to reach tertiary-level qualifications and professional occupations.

Swedes uphold progressive attitudes regarding family, sexuality, and gender norms. At the same time, Sweden has had generous immigration policies for decades. This leads to challenges for children of immigrants, who must navigate between expectations from their family and the surrounding society. Therefore, this study asks whether children of immigrants’ attitudes relating to family, sexuality and gender roles adapt and approach those of their Swedish-background peers, using the Swedish branch of the CILS4EU survey (n=5434). We account for dynamics in three ways: We compare attitudes of first- and second-generation immigrants; compare attitudes of youth to those of their parents; and study change in youth’s attitudes over time. In favour of acculturation, we find that second-generation immigrants have more liberal attitudes than first-generation immigrants, that immigrantbackground youth are closer to majority peers in attitudes than their parents are to majority parents, and that gender norms of immigrant-background youth move closer to those of Swedishbackground youth over time. For attitudes relating to family and sexuality, however, we find a divergence in attitudes over time, but not because immigrant-background youth become less liberal: Their views do become more liberal, but majority youth see an even stronger change in the same direction

Marriages or consensual unions across ethnic groups (exogamy) is a strong indicator of social integration, whereas in-group relations (endogamy) signal social seclusion. With a large and diverse foreign-background population, Sweden provides an interesting case for studying partnering across origin groups, defined by own or parental country of origin. Using population register data covering marriages and consensual unions we find clear endogamy in all origin groups, especially those with background in the Middle East and Somalia. ‘Pan-ethnic’ cohabitation is common for those with origin in the Middle East and the Balkans, and transnational partnering is surprisingly frequent in some groups – these phenomena contribute to endogamy rates up to 70%. Exogamous cohabitation is particularly rare among women with background in the Middle East and Somalia, who are much less likely than their brothers to live with a partner of Swedish origin. Endogamy decreases with time spent in Sweden and increases with more co-ethnics in the local area, but neither of these factors accounts for more than a small part of the differences in endogamy. Culturally attracting and/or repelling mechanisms in partner choice are likely to be a major factor behind endogamy.

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. It is well established that intergenerational income mobility is lower in countries with high inequality, but research on trends in mobility finds conflicting results. Motivated by this uncertainty, we ask: how important are choices of specification for levels and trends in intergenerational income associations? We use Swedish data on cohorts born 1958–1977 and their parents. Varying how, when and for whom income is measured, we estimate 1,658,880 different associations (82,944 specifications across 20 cohorts). Our results reveal that model choice is an underrecognized source of variation in intergenerational mobility research. The most consistent contributor to trends is the advancement of women in the labor market, which leads to increased persistence in women’s earnings and the family income of both men and women. Depending on specification, it is possible to conclude that income mobility is increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat. Despite variability, our results are broadly consistent with the received view that the level of mobility in Sweden is high in a comparative perspective.

In many Western countries, researchers have documented ‘immigrant optimism’ in education, i.e., the tendency for immigrant-background students to choose academically more demanding routes than others at given levels of grade point averages (GPA). For some, this indicates structural integration, while others alert against an ‘immigrant optimism trap’ when ambition trumps ability, leading to high risks of non-completion. Using longitudinal Swedish population data (n≈90,000), we estimate the upper secondary ‘completion gap’ to 12% to the detriment of immigrant-background students. We then address the ‘trap hypothesis’ via two counterfactual analyses. The first shows that if immigrant-background youth made similar educational choices as other students at the same GPA, the completion gap would shrink by 3.4 percentage points. The second analysis suggests that restricting admission to programmes based on prior GPA, which would lead to a massive relocation of low- and mid-GPA students to vocational programmes, would reduce the completion gap by 2.2 percentage points. These changes must be considered marginal in view of the substantial restrictions of choice that either of these measures would entail. We conclude that completion gaps are not primarily a result of immigrant optimism, and optimistic choices are likely to be a net positive for structural integration.

A recent literature studies the role of grandparents in status transmission. Results have been mixed, and theoretical contributions highlight biases that complicate the interpretation of these studies. We use newly harmonized income tax records on more than 700,000 Swedish lineages to establish four empirical facts. First, a model that includes both mothers and fathers and takes a multidimensional view of stratification reduces the residual three-generation association in our population to a trivial size. Second, data on fathers' cognitive ability show that even extensive controls for standard socioeconomic variables fail to remove omitted variable bias. Third, the common finding that grandparents compensate poor parental resources can be attributed to greater difficulty of observing parent status accurately at the lower end of the distribution. Fourth, the lower the data quality, and the less detailed the model, the greater is the size of the estimated grandparent coefficient. Future work on multigenerational mobility should pay less attention to the size and significance of this association, which depends heavily on arbitrary sample and specification characteristics, and go on to establish a set of more robust descriptive facts.

Growing up in Diverse Societies provides a comprehensive analysis of the integration of the children of immigrants in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, based on the ‘Children of immigrants longitudinal survey in four European countries’ (CILS4EU), including harmonised interviews with almost 19,000 14- to 15-year-olds. The book studies the life situation, social relations, and attitudes of adolescents in different ethnic minority groups, and compares these systematically to majority youth in the four countries. The chapters cover a wide range of aspects of integration, all addressing comparisons between origin groups, generations, and destination countries, and elucidating processes accounting for differences. The results challenge much current thinking and simplified views on the state of integration. In some aspects, such as own economic means, delinquency, and mental health, children of immigrants are surprisingly similar to majority youth, while in other aspects there are large dissimilarities. There are also substantial differences between ethnic minority groups, with the economic and cultural distance of the origin regions to the destination country being a key factor. For some outcomes, such as language proficiency or host country identification, dissimilarities seem to narrow over generations, but this does not hold for other outcomes, such as religiosity and attitudes. Remaining differences partly depend on ethnic segregation, some on socioeconomic inequality, and others on parental influences. Most interestingly, the book finds that the four destination countries, though different in their immigration histories, policy approaches, and contextual conditions, are on the whole similar in the general patterns of integration and in the underlying processes.