Magical Transition? Intergenerational Educational and Occupational Mobility in Rural China: 1988–2002

Abstract

This paper presents evidence on intergenerational educational and occupational mobility in rural China over a period of 14 years (1988–2002). To understand whether the estimated inter-generational persistence can be driven solely by unobserved heterogeneity, biprobit sensitivity analysis and heteroskedasticity-based identification are implemented. The empirical results show that there have been dramatic improvements in occupational mobility from agriculture to nonfarm occupations; a farmer’s children are not any more likely to become farmers in 2002, although there was significant persistence in occupation choices in 1988. In contrast, the intergenerational mobility in educational attainment has remained largely unchanged for daughters, and it has deteriorated significantly for sons. There is strong evidence of a causal effect of parental education on a son’s schooling in 2002. The paper provides some possible explanations for the dramatic divergence between occupational and educational mobility in rural China from 1988 to 2002.