What difference does non-response make to observed patterns of intergenerational class mobility by ethnic group?
) (Institute for Social and Economic Research) Abstract While there is an extensive literature on intergenerational class mobility in Britain there is less work on the impact of these different forms of missing data on the observed transitions between parent’s class and child’s class. It may be particularly pertinent to consider the impact of missing data when evaluating ethnic group differences in intergenerational mobility, since unemployment is known to differ systematically with ethnicity, as do survey and census response. Research into intergenerational class transitions as they differ by ethnic group in Britain is the subject of only a small number of studies, and there has not been any detailed examination of the impact of missing data in studying ethnic group differences in intergenerational social mobility. The contribution of this paper is to highlight the issue of missing data in studying social mobility, to outline its potential implications, and to offer some preliminary a
