Intergenerational transmission of behavioural patterns: How similar are parents’ and children's demographic trajectories?

Abstract

This study examines whether intergenerational continuity exists in the demographic trajectories of parents and children during young adulthood. A new indicator to measure similarity, based on the idea that trajectories are more similar, the more subtrajectories they have in common, is compared to a similarity indicator based on optimal matching. Using data on parents and children from the NSFH, it is shown that intergenerational transmission of demographic trajectories exists, despite the dramatic changes in such trajectories in the last half-century. Continuities in demographic patterns across generations to a large extent result from continuities in general societal processes that structure the life course, but processes that operate within the family itself are important as well. Substantive and methodological implications of the findings are discussed.

Introduction

The extent to which behaviours are transmitted from parents to children is of key interest to social scientists, because the level of intergenerational transmission can be viewed as an indicator of the openness of a society and of the ability of the family system to transmit preferred behaviour to the next generation. Intergenerational transmission has been studied with regard to topics like educational attainment (Mare & Maralani, 2006), fertility (Barber, 2001), union formation (Thornton, 1991) and divorce (Diekmann and Engelhardt, 1999, Wolfinger, 1999). Most of this research has focused on the intergenerational transmission of specific behaviours rather than behavioural patterns. This is unfortunate, because it is likely that parents will not just try to transmit specific behaviours to their children, but will rather try to transmit their ‘way of life’. If so, one would expect continuities in the behavioural trajectories of parents and their children. However, little is known about the extent to which trajectories of parents and children resemble each other.

Major reasons for this state of affairs are the lack of appropriate data and the lack of appropriate methods. In order to study the transmission of behavioural trajectories, information is needed on the timing of major events in the lives of both parents and children. Such data are rarely collected. In addition, methods are needed that allow the level of similarity of the trajectories to be assessed. In this article, we explore the usefulness of sequence analytic methods to estimate the level of similarity between behavioural trajectories of parents and children (Elzinga, 2005). To do so, we use data on the family life trajectories of parents and children in the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH).

After a brief discussion of the reasons why intergenerational transmission of demographic trajectories is likely, our methods to estimate the level of intergenerational transmission are introduced, followed by a discussion of the data used to illustrate our methods. Next, empirical estimates of the level of intergenerational transmission are presented, and it is examined whether the extent of this transmission varies across relevant subpopulations. The main results and implications are discussed in the concluding section.