Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.s. since 1850: Comment.

Using historical census and survey data, Long and Ferrie (forthcoming) found a significant decline in social mobility in the United States from 1880 to 1973. We present two critiques of the Long-Ferrie study. First, the data quality of the Long-Ferrie study is more limiting than the authors acknowledge. Second, and more critically, they applied a method ill-suited for measuring social mobility of farmers in a comparative study between 1880 and 1973, a period in which the proportion of farmers dramatically declined in the U.S. We show that Long and Ferrie's main conclusion is all driven by this misleading result for farmers.