Local Historical Context and Multigenerational Socioeconomic Attainment

Abstract We present an analytical model that outlines different pathways through which local contexts, defined as bounded geographic areas, shape socioeconomic attainment in three generations. Our model broadens the multigenerational research agenda, which has mainly focused on transmission within the family, and offers a framework for analyzing how exogenous shocks to local contexts could be used to test causal hypotheses. We use a descriptive case study of 20th century Wisconsin to illustrate how we can interpret empirical associations between characteristics of local contexts and socioeconomic attainment in three generations within our model. We end by considering how we could extend our model to capture a more complex set of contextual factors and how we could use it to address inferential challenges in multigenerational research.