Yes we do.

Ending slavery led to a huge boost in Black Americans’ mobility, but the beginning of Jim Crow reversed some of those gains.

In contrast, white mobility surged during the Jim Crow era, as schooling became near-universal for white children during this period.

The message is clear: America's mobility wasn't accidental—it resulted from public investments in mass education, breaking barriers and enabling children to thrive regardless of their family background.

Full paper: lukasalthoff.github.io/pdf/igm_moth...

A key empirical contribution is our new census panel (1850–1950)— leveraging historical admin. data to include women despite name changes. It is the most representative census panel available & comprises 186,000,000 linked records.

Now publicly available: github.com/lukasalthoff...

Among our methodological contributions is a latent variable approach that uncovers rank-rank mobility from binary data (e.g., literacy). It can also address limitations common in modern data, such as coarsening & top-coding.

We extensively validate this method using modern data.

Including mothers in mobility studies is key to understanding the US's path to opportunity. It alters conclusions, such as the South appearing rel. mobile in father-son comparisons, but actually being the least mobile due to scarce schooling & reliance on maternal human capital.

Income mobility rose in tandem with human capital mobility over this period. This rise in income mobility is also uniquely accounted for by the changing role of maternal human capital.

Before mass schooling, mothers were children's primary educators at home. Schooling reduced dependence on maternal human capital, previously the most important predictor of children's outcomes.

Causal evidence from mandatory schooling laws support this conclusion.

Mobility surged, but the timing differed by race consistent with schooling gaps.

White mobility surged after 1880 as school attendance rose from 60% to 90%, cementing US's lead in (white) mass schooling. Black mobility surged post-slavery but fell after 1880 (Jim Crow era).

We introduce a new approach to measuring mobility that simultaneously considers multiple parental inputs, including both parents' human capital.

Mobility = Variation in child outcomes unaccounted for by parental background.

Congratulations! 🎉