Specificity and Consistency of Cohort Effects: The APCD Model Applied to Generational Inequalities, France-United States, 1985-2010

By returning to the theoretical sources of the generational question, the importance of two central concepts, specificity and consistency of cohort effects, is emphasized and gives rise to a new APC-D model and a hysteresis test designed to identify long-term cohort effects: a scarring effect, or cohortal scar. A Franco-American comparison of living standards is developed by using cohort data from 1985 to 2010 from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and Statistics on Income and Living Conditions–Eurostat (EU-SILC). In France, net generational inequalities (taking account of demographic and educational contexts, in particular) are of the same magnitude as the inequalities linked to immigrant status; the beneficiaries being cohorts born around the year 1950. This phenomenon is not declining in intensity with time. The dynamic within the USA is its antithesis, which can be explained by differences in French and American welfare regimes. France is thus marked by deep intergenerational inequalities.