Intergeneration Social Mobility as a Markov Process

Abstract

Intergeneration social mobility is an old concern in both sociology and economics and refers to a change in the status of family members from one generation to the next. In the line with Markov Chain Theory, in this paper, we provide estimates for intergenerational mobility, which is measured in terms of probabilities. We believe that the social mobility as many other natural and social science process can be represented by Markov matrices.
The results from this study show that after 7 generations the distribution has converged to its stationary point. Meaning, if there is no policy initiative to shift the intergeneration immobility; UK will remain with distribution showing inequality and different opportunities for the young generations depending on their parental background. In addition, over time the number of individual belonging to low-income class has increased, from 0.21 to 0.289. This implies that in UK, the income inequality has been increasing trough the period. The problem is formulated by using the Wolfram Mathematical Programming System.