Generational mobility of immigrant descendants in Scandinavia

Immigrants tend to be concentrated in the lower part of the earnings distribution, yet their children typically outperform natives with similar parental earnings Abramitzky et al. (2021); Boustan (2025). Whether upward mobility among the second generation leads to enduring convergence depends on how strongly gains are concentrated within specific groups, how much they are diluted through sorting in the marriage market, and human capital formation across generations. In light of the growing populations with foreign-born parents or grandparents,these patterns are important for overall inequality in rich destination countries.1.

In this paper, we draw on harmonized registers from three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) and apply a common estimation framework to study earnings mobility across the earnings distribution. We explore how educational attainment, partner choice, and origin-country cultural heritage shape the mobility patterns of Scandinavians born to immigrant parents. Using linked school test score data, we ask whether these gains persist into the third generation.