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	Intergenerational Elasticity	Social Mobility Table
Field	Sociology	Sociology
Family	Regression model	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1992	1927 (concept); 1970s–1980s (modern analysis)
Originator	Gary Solon (modern estimation)	Pitirim Sorokin; refined by Hauser, Hout, Featherman
Type	Regression-based measure of intergenerational income persistence	Cross-classification of social origins by destinations
Seminal source	Solon, G. (1992). Intergenerational income mobility in the United States. American Economic Review, 82(3), 393–408.	Hauser, R. M. (1978). A structural model of the mobility table. Social Forces, 56(3), 919–953.
Aliases	IGE, intergenerational income elasticity, intergenerational income persistence, father-son income elasticity	mobility table, intergenerational mobility table, origin-destination table, transition table analysis
Related	5	5
Summary	The intergenerational elasticity of income (IGE) is the workhorse measure of economic mobility: the regression coefficient from regressing a child's adult log income on the parent's log income. It expresses the percentage by which a child's expected income rises for each one-percent increase in parental income, so a higher IGE means income advantages and disadvantages are more strongly transmitted across generations and society is less mobile.	A social mobility table is a cross-classification of individuals by their social origin (typically a parent's class or occupation) and their own destination class, forming the empirical foundation of intergenerational mobility research. Analyzing it separates how much people move between classes, distinguishes movement forced by changing class sizes from genuine exchange, and isolates the underlying origin–destination association that measures the openness of a society.