Compare methods

	Sequence Analysis	Intergenerational Elasticity
Field	Sociology	Sociology
Family	Process / pipeline	Regression model
Year of origin	1980s–2000 (sociological consolidation)	1992
Originator	Andrew Abbott (introduced to sociology)	Gary Solon (modern estimation)
Type	Holistic analysis of categorical state sequences over time	Regression-based measure of intergenerational income persistence
Seminal source	Abbott, A., & Tsay, A. (2000). Sequence analysis and optimal matching methods in sociology: review and prospect. Sociological Methods & Research, 29(1), 3–33.	Solon, G. (1992). Intergenerational income mobility in the United States. American Economic Review, 82(3), 393–408.
Aliases	social sequence analysis, life-course sequence analysis, categorical sequence analysis, trajectory analysis	IGE, intergenerational income elasticity, intergenerational income persistence, father-son income elasticity
Related	5	5
Summary	Sequence analysis is a holistic method for studying ordered categorical trajectories — such as month-by-month employment states, family life-course events, or daily activity patterns — by treating each individual's whole sequence as a unit, measuring how dissimilar pairs of sequences are, and grouping them into a typology of characteristic pathways. Introduced to sociology by Andrew Abbott, it shifts attention from isolated transitions to the shape of entire life courses.	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.