Intergenerational Analysis of Social Interaction and Social Skills: An Analysis of U.S. and U.K. Panel Data

A body of empirical evidence supports a positive relationship between educational attainment and social interaction. We build on this literature by exploring the relationship between the social interaction of parents and their offspring from an empirical perspective. Using two U.K. and U.S. panel data sets, we find robust evidence of intergenerational links between the social interaction of parents and their offspring supporting the existence of positive intergenerational effects in social interaction. These links exist after controlling for an extensive set of factors covering family background including income and wealth as well as attempting to control for issues related to reverse causality and endogeneity. Our empirical evidence indicates that higher levels of parental social interaction are associated with higher levels of child social interaction. Our findings indicate an important influence on this facet of children's human capital, namely social skills, with positive consequences expected for educational attainment.