Research project Grandchildren of misfortune: The role of resilience for multigenerational patterns of inequality

Photo: Vladimir Voronin/Mostphotos

By focusing on resilience indicators in adolescence that are modifiable and derived from contexts outside the individuals and their families – such as the school – the results of the project will be of great relevance for interventions that aim to improve the life chances of vulnerable groups as well as for policies targeted at decreasing inequality at the societal level.

Project description

This project aims to examine the extent to which social, economic, and health-related adversities are transmitted across multiple generations – from parents, to children, to grandchildren – and whether processes reflecting resilience may break this reproduction of inequality. Based on genealogical microdata from Sweden for a cohort of 14,608 men and women born in 1953 as well as their parents and children, we apply gender-sensitive statistical models to study how adult adversity in each generation translates into adolescent adversity in each following generation. Moreover, we consider a range of resilience indicators in the intermediate generation that may protect them against the transmission of adversity from their parents, and potentially also reduce the risk of adversity in the subsequent generation.

The project is estimated to run for four years and result in high-quality publications in international, peer-reviewed journals. While anchored in sociology, the project team is composed of researchers with varying disciplinary backgrounds, active within as well as outside academia. By focusing on resilience indicators in adolescence that are modifiable and derived from contexts outside the individuals and their families – such as the school – the results of the project will be of great relevance for interventions that aim to improve the life chances of vulnerable groups as well as for policies targeted at decreasing inequality at the societal level.