Researchers across a variety of disciplines including economics, sociology and psychology have been studying economic mobility for some time. Led by a team of researchers from The Urban Institute, the project has summarized the best-available existing research on various factors that might influence individual and family economic mobility, both within and across generations.
The literature reviews presented here cover a broad range of individual and family factors including education, families, health, self-employment, and wealth, and they address a variety of social factors including discrimination, globalization, immigration, labor market institutions, and tax and spending policy. The summaries provide insight into what is known about how these factors affect mobility both within and across generations. However, given the vast nature of the topic, the project considers these working documents that will be updated and expanded as more research continues to be generated in the economic mobility arena.
