Intergenerational Transmission of Lifespan in the US

We examine the transmission of lifespan across generations using a unique dataset containing more than 26 million individuals born between 1880 and 1920. We document new facts about the absolute and relative mobility in lifespan. On average across cohorts, 47% of men and 57 percent of women lived longer than their parents, though this varied across cohorts. Relative measures show higher mobility, with substantially less variation across time and subpopulations. The intergenerational correlation in lifespan (a measure of persistence rather than mobility) is about 0.09 for both sexes – this low correlation is observed across races, education groups, cohorts, and birth states. Finally, we document that the intergenerational persistence of lifespan is much smaller than the persistence in socio-economic status. Moreover, correlations in lifespan and in education are largely independent of each other, suggesting that mobility in well-being may be larger than measures of income alone suggest.