This volume contains twelve essays from twenty-three collaborators, and spans – to varying degrees – ten countries in North America and Europe, as well as touching upon the experience of a further five with lower levels of per capita income. It grew out of a substantive concern with the need for internationally comparable results in the analysis of generational income mobility. The early 1990s witnessed a number of data and methodological developments that revitalized research on this topic in labor economics, and which began to complement a long-standing literature in sociology. As more and more studies of the relationship between parental income and the adult labor market success of children became available, concerns about the comparability of the findings both within and across countries began to be expressed. The idea for this volume springs from this concern, and it is intended to present the major findings and methods to researchers in the area but also to a broader audience concerned with mobility across the generations from both a research and policy perspective.

The initial idea and planning for the project sprang from conversations between Anders Björklund, Marco Francesconi, Susan Mayer, and myself. I am, in the first instance, grateful for their collaboration and to the former Canadian International Labour Network for supporting the initial planning by sponsoring our participation at one of its conferences.