Mothers, Schools, and the Making of American Human Capital Mobility

• Authors: Lukas Althoff, Harriet Brookes Gray and Hugo A. Reichardt
• BSE Working Paper: 1603 | October 2026
• Keywords: intergenerational mobility, human capital, mothers, mass schooling, latent variable methods
• JEL codes: J62, I24, J16, J24, N31, N32

How did the US become a land of opportunity? Previous historical research on intergenerational mobility has focused on father-son income correlations, masking the role of mothers. We introduce a new mobility measure that incorporates both parents’ human capital, develop a latent variable method leveraging literacy as a proxy, and construct a representative linked panel that includes women. We find that intergenerational mobility—in both human capital and income—rose sharply from the 19th to the 20th century. Initially, maternal human capital was most predictive of children’s outcomes. However, as schooling expanded, this reliance declined and intergenerational mobility rose. Investments in mass education have therefore been central to America’s rise as a mobile society.