The name says it all Multigenerational social mobility in Basel (Switzerland), 1550–2019

Abstract

We analyze multigenerational social mobility by drawing on a novel hand-collected dataset from Basel (1550–2019) and using a new surname-based approach. We find an average parent-child persistence of about 0.4 and an average grandparent-child persistence of about 0.2 in a three-generational model applied to a time span of more than 450 years. A cyclical pattern indicates that social mobility was lowest in wartime generations, with spreading afterward. We measure a statistically significant additional influence of the grandparental generation but not of earlier generations. This reveals the importance of multigenerational analyses to examine equal opportunities in society.