From the cradle to the grave : the effect of family background on the career path of Italian men

Michele Raitano and Francesco Vona

This paper investigates the influence of parental education on the returns to experience of Italian men using a new longitudinal dataset that contains detailed information on individual working histories. Our favourite panel estimates indicate that an additional year of parental education increases sons' weekly wages by 11.7% after twenty years of experience and that 71% of this effect emerges during the career. We show that this effect holds irrespective of individual abilities, and it appears the result of both a glass ceiling effect, due to the complementarity between parental education and son's abilities, and a parachute effect, associated with family labour market connections.

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Year of publication:	2015
Authors:	Raitano, Michele ; Vona, Francesco
Publisher:	Milano : Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei
Subject:	Intergenerational Inequality \| Parental Education \| Experience-Earnings profiles \| Human Capital \| Humankapital \| Human capital \| Erwerbsverlauf \| Occupational attainment \| Bildungsniveau \| Educational achievement \| Eltern \| Parents \| Italien \| Italy \| Lohn \| Wages \| Generationengerechtigkeit \| Intergenerational equity \| Familie \| Family \| Männer \| Men \| Soziale Mobilität \| Social mobility \| Bildungsertrag \| Returns to education