Dynastic Human Capital, Ethnic Capital and Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants

Research has shown that the socio-economic assimilation of immigrants across generations is slower than what we would expect from individual-level evidence. A prominent explanation is that group-level “ethnic capital” could affect child outcomes in addition to family background.

We combine this “ethnic capital” perspective with a “dynastic human capital” perspective, in which members of the extended family, such as aunts and uncles, play a role in explaining child outcomes. Part of the intergenerational persistence that has been attributed to the ethnic group might instead be due to the extended family. Our framework allows us to disentangle these two factors.

We use data obtained from Swedish population registers on three generations of immigrants, allowing us to map out the extended family of each third-generation immigrant.