Intergenerational educational mobility in Denmark and the United States

An overall finding in comparative mobility studies is that intergenerational mobility is greater in Scandinavia than in liberal welfare-state countries like the United States and United Kingdom. However, in a recent study, Landersø and Heckman (L & H) (2017) argue that intergenerational educational mobility in Denmark and the United States is remarkably similar. L & H’s findings run contrary to widespread beliefs and have been echoed in academia and mass media on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

In this article, we reanalyze educational mobility in Denmark and the United States using the same data sources as L & H. We apply several different methodological approaches from economics and sociology, and we consistently find that educational mobility is higher in Denmark than in the United States.