economy_mobility_county_cohort
TREND. County x birth-cohort grain. Opportunity Atlas M2 / Changing Opportunity (2024) — mobility trends across birth cohorts 1978-1992 by county. birth_cohort is the temporal key (birth year of the cohort, NOT an observation year). 15 cohorts enable genuine trend analysis: is mobility improving or declining? kfr_* = household income rank (0-1) at parental p25. Sparse subgroups NULL by design (OI suppression). CANNOT reconstruct M1: different products, different suppression rules.
tier aTier A: peer-reviewed academic research using IRS administrative tax records.
overview
overview
~47,700 county x birth-cohort rows for 1978–1991 cohorts.
current vintage — 2018
history — No — single research release covering 1978–1991 birth cohorts
provenance
source & licensing
authority
Opportunity Insights (Harvard University)
dataset
Opportunity Atlas — County x Birth Cohort Mobility Estimates
source url
license
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (Opportunity Insights)
citation
Chetty, R., et al. (2018). The Opportunity Atlas. NBER Working Paper 25147.
schema
fields
| name | type | definition |
|---|---|---|
| _ingested_at | timestamp | Timestamp when this record was written to BigQuery.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _ingestor_version | string | Version of the ingestor script that produced this record.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _reliability_tier | string | Data quality tier (A/B/C) assigned at ingestion.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _source_dataset_id | string | Internal dataset identifier linking to meta.datasets.Pipeline metadata field. |
| birth_cohortkey | int64 | Birth year of the cohort, ranging from 1978 to 1992. Use this column as the temporal key to track whether intergenerational mobility is improving or declining across generations — it is not a calendar observation year.Part of primary key. |
| country_id | string | ISO alpha-2 country code (always 'US' for domestic tables). |
| county_idkey | string | 5-character FIPS code identifying the county.Part of primary key. Joins dim.counties on county_id. |
| kfr_asian_pooled_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Asian children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across genders. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_asian_pooled_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Asian children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across genders. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_black_female_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Black female children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds due to the joint race-gender-county stratification. |
| kfr_black_male_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Black male children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds due to the joint race-gender-county stratification. |
| kfr_black_pooled_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Black children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across genders. NULL where the county-cohort cell is too small to meet Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_black_pooled_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Black children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across genders. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_hisp_pooled_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Hispanic children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across genders. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_hisp_pooled_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for Hispanic children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across genders. Sparse — NULL where cell size falls below Opportunity Insights suppression thresholds. |
| kfr_pooled_female_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for female children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across all races. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility among women from low-income families. |
| kfr_pooled_female_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for female children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across all races. Higher values indicate higher expected adult income rank among women from upper-middle-income families. |
| kfr_pooled_male_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for male children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across all races. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility among men from low-income families. |
| kfr_pooled_male_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for male children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across all races. Higher values indicate higher expected adult income rank among men from upper-middle-income families. |
| kfr_pooled_pooled_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across all races and genders. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility for children from low-income families. |
| kfr_pooled_pooled_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across all races and genders. Higher values indicate higher expected adult income rank for children from upper-middle-income families. |
| kfr_white_female_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for white female children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility among white women from low-income families. |
| kfr_white_male_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for white male children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility among white men from low-income families. |
| kfr_white_pooled_p25 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for white children whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, pooled across genders. Higher values indicate greater upward mobility among white children from low-income families. |
| kfr_white_pooled_p75 | float64 · rank (0–1) | Mean household income rank in adulthood for white children whose parents were at the 75th income percentile, pooled across genders. Higher values indicate higher expected adult income rank among white children from upper-middle-income families. |
| state_id | string | 2-character FIPS code identifying the state.Joins dim.states on state_id. |
relationships
joins
primary key
county_id, birth_cohort
common joins
economy_mobility_county_m1 on (county_id)
dim.geographies on (county_id)
usage
how to use this table
method
Same methodology as economy_mobility_county_m1 but disaggregated by birth cohort.
do not use for
Reconstructing or cross-validating M1 using birth_cohort=1983 overlap — different suppression rules make them incompatible. Treating birth_cohort as an observation year (it is the cohort's birth year, not the year outcomes were measured).
known issues
birth_cohort is NOT an observation year — outcomes are measured ~age 30. Sparse race x county x cohort cells suppressed (NULL). M2 covers income rank only (kfr); no jail/incarceration series unlike M1.
last updated · Jul 7, 2026