The United States manufacturing industry has long been regarded as the economic engine that built and sustained the middle class. In recent decades, this pillar of economic opportunity has eroded substantially. Though much has been written about the decline of manufacturing sectors in United States communities, the potential consequences for economic mobility, and stratification processes more generally, remain largely unexplored. In this study, I develop a conceptual framework linking the study of labor market change to economic stratification. I examine how structural changes to United States labor markets have altered opportunities for economic advancement in the United States. I focus the analysis on birth cohorts in the 1980s, whose labor market entry spans the large-scale erosion of the manufacturing industry in the 2000s. I find strong evidence that declines in manufacturing employment have contributed to growing geographic disparities in upward intergenerational income mobility. Children raised in counties that experienced large contractions in manufacturing industries throughout adolescence experienced large economic penalties in adulthood via reduced levels of upward mobility. The results demonstrate how long-term macroeconomic changes can disrupt and redistribute opportunities within societies.

中文翻译：

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工业衰退和代际收入流动性的特定群体经历

美国制造业长期以来被视为建立和维持中产阶级的经济引擎。近几十年来，这一经济机会支柱已大幅削弱。尽管关于美国社区制造业衰退的文章很多，但其对经济流动性和更普遍的分层过程的潜在后果在很大程度上仍未得到探讨。在这项研究中，我开发了一个将劳动力市场变化研究与经济分层联系起来的概念框架。我研究了美国劳动力市场的结构性变化如何改变了美国经济发展的机会。我重点分析 20 世纪 80 年代的出生群体，他们进入劳动力市场的时间跨越了 2000 年代制造业的大规模侵蚀。我发现强有力的证据表明，制造业就业人数的下降导致代际收入流动性的地理差异日益扩大。在整个青春期经历制造业大幅萎缩的县长大的孩子，在成年后会因向上流动水平下降而遭受巨大的经济惩罚。结果表明，长期宏观经济变化如何扰乱和重新分配社会内部的机会。