Today’s Traces of the Highly (Dis)Advantaged in 1880. Examining SES Outcomes Among Descendants Using a Prospective Multigenerational Design

We expand on previous approaches to intergenerational mobility by studying the longue durée of social stratification. Demographic and socioeconomic processes can be viewed from a prospective perspective, i.e., analyzing how some ancestors both have more children and descendants, more successful descendants, and leave a stronger cultural mark on future generations. We analyze this by tracing multigenerational dynasties forward in time based on historical ancestry reflecting strong (dis)advantage. Using multiple historical national censuses linked to contemporary registers, we can link the educational and occupational outcomes of twenty-first-century descendants to the 1880 Swedish population, and assess to what extent their outcomes depend on the SES of their 1880 ancestors.

Previous historical work on social mobility has been constrained by standard indicators of socioeconomic status; in historical data largely limited to occupations. We use less common markers of status in the extended family to infer lineages of extreme advantage and disadvantage in 1880. At the high end of the stratification system, these include those with elite surnames, people of aristocratic rank, the higher educated, or those with domestic staff. At the bottom, we will study deprived groups, such as those registered as vagrants or subject to severe disability. Another dimension of marginalization is ethnic minority status, applying to Sami, Tornedalians, and Fins in nineteenth-century Sweden, derived from surnames.

We expand on previous mobility approaches by evaluating the variation in outcomes among descendants from a given distinct social origin in 1880; over the long term, (how) do different descendants with distinct historical origins fare in school and on the labor market? Does this differ by source of historical (dis)advantage? Are long-term descendants of advantaged groups less mobile than descendants of disadvantaged groups? Are there differences by historical origin in the returns to education?