Social relationships across and within generations are associated with intergenerational income mobility. Parents affect their children’s future opportunities through socialization and by conveying various resources to the child during upbringing. However, self-acquired social contacts of children, such as friendships in school, might also affect long-term outcomes. Children from less privileged homes may gain access to additional resources through contact with privileged friends and their parents. This study examines whether having a classroom friend with high parental income (privileged friend) is associated with upward income mobility. Furthermore, it explores where in the parental income distribution a privileged friend matters most. We use data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study (n = 10,641), which is a prospective study of individuals born in 1953 who lived in the greater Stockholm area in 1963. We fit classroom fixed-effects models to estimate the association between having a privileged childhood friend and adult income as well as parental income and adult income along with the interaction of privileged friend and parental income. Results show that cohort members who had a privileged classroom friend had higher adult income, and that this income gain was greater among those whose parents belonged to the lowest income quartile, compared with those whose parents had higher incomes. These results are robust to adjustments for childhood socioeconomic background, personal attributes, and adult educational attainment. Our findings indicate that having an economically privileged friend in the school class bolsters adult income and upward income mobility of children from families with low income.

中文翻译：

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特权课堂朋友对成人收入和收入流动性的影响：对 1953 年出生的瑞典群体的研究

代际和代内的社会关系与代际收入流动性相关。父母通过社会化以及在成长过程中向孩子提供各种资源来影响孩子未来的机会。然而，儿童自我获得的社会联系，例如学校里的友谊，也可能会影响长期结果。来自贫困家庭的孩子可以通过与特权朋友及其父母联系来获得额外的资源。本研究探讨了拥有高父母收入的课堂朋友（特权朋友）是否与向上的收入流动性相关。此外，它还探讨了在父母收入分配中，特权朋友最重要的地方。我们使用斯德哥尔摩出生队列多代研究的数据（n = 10,641），这是一项针对 1953 年出生、1963 年居住在斯德哥尔摩大区的个人的前瞻性研究。我们采用课堂固定效应模型来估计拥有特权儿时朋友与成年收入之间的关系，以及父母收入与成人收入以及特权朋友和父母收入的相互作用。结果显示，拥有特权课堂朋友的群组成员成年后收入较高，而且与父母收入较高的人相比，父母属于收入最低四分之一的人的收入增幅更大。这些结果对于儿童社会经济背景、个人特质和成人教育程度的调整是稳健的。