Increasing Inequality in Parent Incomes and Children's Completed Schooling: Correlation or Causation?
ABSTRACT: It is well known that income inequality increased dramatically in the United States beginning in the 1970s. Reardon (2011) documents a correspondingly large increase - of close to .50 standard deviations - in the test score gap between children in low and high income families over the same period. This paper shifts the focus from achievement to attainment, as measured by years of completed schooling, and tracks changes in income inequality and educational attainment between children born into low- and high-income households in the U.S. between 1954 and 1985.