Can transport infrastructure expand long-term labour opportunities and weaken the occupational link between parents and children? We estimate the causal effect of railway access on occupational attainment and intergenerational mobility in nineteenth-century England and Wales. Exploiting the as-good-as-random opening of built and planned stations, we address endogeneity in rail proximity. Sons living 5 km closer to a station were more likely to leave farming for industrial and commercial jobs, often entering the top quartile of the occupational distribution. Railway access increased the probability of working in a different occupation than one?s father by 2% and of upward mobility by 6%.

---

10 April 2026

---

The Economic Journal 2026

---

DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueag047

https://academic.oup.com/ej/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ej/ueag047/8651302

This Journal article is published under the centre's Growth programme.