Like mother, like daughter ?

For a long time, research into the practice of professions has been limited to sons, despite the great importance of female employment in the past. Vincent Delabastita and Erik Buyst (Department of Economics KULeuven) used marriage certificates in nineteenth-century West Flanders to investigate not only the economic activities of fathers and sons, but also those of mothers and daughters. To what extent did these children exercise the same profession of the parents? Analysis of numerous marriage certificates show that daughters were more mobile than sons. However, daughters saw less growth in intergenerational mobility during the province’s gradual industrialization. The researchers used LOKSTAT to map the general population trend. 

Article:

Vincent Delabastita en Erik Buyst . “Intergenerational mobility of sons and daughters: evidence from nineteenth-century West Flanders”, in European Review of Economic History, 2021, 1-28.