Returns to Skills, Technological Change, and Intergenerational Mobility
Working paper · November 2026
Key findings
Rising returns, offsetting occupational sorting. In our benchmark, the return to cognitive skill requirement rises from 0.212 to 0.351, while the parental-income and cognitive skill gradient falls from 0.488 to 0.310. The intergenerational income elasticity stay stable.
A small measured contribution from changes within occupations. Dynamic occupational requirements reveal small within-occupation contributions to intergenerational income persistence. Even within occupation task upgrading is substatial, relative skill requirement ranking across occupations stay unchanged.
Large differences in access remain. Among children born in the 1980s, 11.8% from the lowest parental-income quintile reach the highest cognitive occupational group, compared with 45.3% from the highest quintile, using the child-period occupational ranking.