Intergenerational Networks, Unemployment, and Persistent Inequality in South Africa

This paper examines the importance of network-based intergenerational correlations in South Africa. I use longitudinal data on young South Africans to examine the covariance of children’s employment with parents’usefulness in job search. I …nd that fathers serve as useful network connections to their sons (and not daughters), but that mothers do not seem to be useful network connections. The father-son e¤ect is robust to alternate explanations of speci…c human capital and correlated networks. The size of this e¤ect is large: present fathers’utility as network connections may be responsible for a 1/3 increase in their sons’employment rates. JEL Codes: O12,J62,J21