Intergenerational Educational Mobility Research Articles

Patterns of Intergenerational Educational (Im)Mobility

Patterns of Intergenerational Educational (Im)Mobility

The making and unmaking of opportunity: educational mobility in 20th‐century Denmark

AbstractWe examine trends in intergenerational educational mobility throughout the 20th century in Denmark. We demonstrate that major reforms in compulsory schooling substantially increased not only the levels of education but also intergenerational mobility in education for children born in the 1940s through to the 1960s. However, even as college education has expanded significantly for children born in the 1970s and 1980s, educational mobility has been declining. We empirically test different mechanisms that could account for this decline in educational mobility.

A lost land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational educational mobility in China

AbstractDespite the significant political, economic and geographical diversity in China, there is limited research on spatial differences in intergenerational mobility in China. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring the spatial and temporal dimensions of intergenerational educational mobility in China. The data used for the analysis is the 2010–2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), a nationally representative longitudinal general social survey. The analysis incorporates both relative and absolute mobility measures to provide a comprehensive description of intergenerational educational mobility. The results reveal substantial regional differences in intergenerational educational mobility across various economic zones in China, with a rising geographic inequality over time. The southwest and northeast regions stand out as the areas where the educational prospects of the young generation have become not only bleaker but dependent more on their parents. Additionally, this study presents the first education Great Gatsby Curve for China, highlighting the strong relationship between intergenerational mobility and education inequality at the regional level, particularly after China's market reform. The findings highlight the need for regionally targeted policies and levelling up agendas to promote educational opportunities in low‐mobility regions.

Educational mobility and subjective well-being from an intergenerational perspective

The well-being implications of intergenerational educational mobility have been extensively studied, yet the focus predominantly lies on primary movers—individuals who themselves move up or down the educational ladder. Less is known about the impact of adult children’s educational mobility on their parents’ subjective well-being. Moreover, the role of family structures and gender dynamics in shaping the well-being outcomes of such mobility has often been overlooked. The study employs the Diagonal Mobility Model to estimate the effects of net mobility on subjective well-being, independently of both parents’ (origin) and their adult children’s (destination) educational levels, using data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies. The results show that the subjective well-being of both generations was influenced by origin and destination, with a more pronounced effect from their own education. Notably, downward mobility adversely affected individuals’ and their parents’ subjective well-being, a phenomenon observed exclusively among those in only-child families. Among these parents, mothers with an upwardly mobile daughter reported the highest life satisfaction. These findings point to a shift in the traditional gendered parent-child dynamics and underscore the adverse consequences of downward mobility that sway both generations in only-child families.

Educational Mobility, Pace of Aging, and Lifespan Among Participants in the Framingham Heart Study

People who complete more education live longer lives with better health. New evidence suggests that these benefits operate through a slowed pace of biological aging. If so, measurements of the pace of biological aging could offer intermediate end points for studies of how interventions to promote education will affect healthy longevity. To test the hypothesis that upward educational mobility is associated with a slower pace of biological aging and increased longevity. This prospective cohort study analyzed data from 3 generations of participants in the Framingham Heart Study: (1) the original cohort, enrolled beginning in 1948; (2) the Offspring cohort, enrolled beginning in 1971; and (3) the Gen3 cohort, enrolled beginning in 2002. A 3-generation database was constructed to quantify intergenerational educational mobility. Mobility data were linked with blood DNA-methylation data collected from the Offspring cohort in 2005 to 2008 (n = 1652) and the Gen3 cohort in 2009 to 2011 (n = 1449). Follow-up is ongoing. Data analysis was conducted from June 2022 to November 2023 using data obtained from the National Institutes of Health database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP). Educational mobility was measured by comparing participants' educational outcomes with those of their parents. The pace of biological aging was measured from whole-blood DNA-methylation data using the DunedinPACE epigenetic clock. For comparison purposes, the analysis was repeated using 4 other epigenetic clocks. Survival follow-up was conducted through 2019. This study analyzed data from 3101 participants from the Framingham Heart Study; 1652 were in the Offspring cohort (mean [SD] age, 65.57 [9.22] years; 764 [46.2%] male) and 1449 were in the Gen3 cohort (mean [SD] age, 45.38 [7.83] years; 691 [47.7%] male). Participants who were upwardly mobile in educational terms tended to have slower pace of aging in later life (r = -0.18 [95% CI, -0.23 to -0.13]; P < .001). This pattern of association was similar across generations and held in within-family sibling comparisons. There were 402 Offspring cohort participants who died over the follow-up period. Upward educational mobility was associated with lower mortality risk (hazard ratio, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.81 to 0.98]; P = .01). Slower pace of aging accounted for approximately half of this association. This cohort study's findings support the hypothesis that interventions to promote educational attainment may slow the pace of biological aging and promote longevity. Epigenetic clocks have potential as near-term outcome measures of intervention effects on healthy aging. Experimental evidence is needed to confirm findings.

Impact of international migration on intergenerational educational mobility in migrant sending households: does socio-economic status matter?

Impact of international migration on intergenerational educational mobility in migrant sending households: does socio-economic status matter?

Women and Intergenerational Mobility in Education: A Micro-Level Study from Weavers’ Community of Varanasi, India

Women and Intergenerational Mobility in Education: A Micro-Level Study from Weavers’ Community of Varanasi, India

Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Europe: Geographical Patterns, Cohort-Linked Measures, and the Innovation Nexus

Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Europe: Geographical Patterns, Cohort-Linked Measures, and the Innovation Nexus

Parental networks, wage expectations, and the intergenerational educational mobility

We develop a novel theoretical framework for studying the relationship between parental social networks and educational choices of children allowing us to analyze the implications of network structure, especially size and homophily, for intergenerational schooling mobility. When the market skill premium is unobservable, families rely on noisy wage information obtained from their social contacts giving rise to heterogeneous expectations across families. Under skill homophily, children in low skill families are stronger affected by imprecise information due to a smaller number of interactions with high skill families, hence, their expectations are more dispersed and they are less likely to study. This yields a positive intergenerational schooling correlation. Empirically, a larger share of high skill parental friends is positively associated with a probability of studying, in line with the model, after controlling for the education of parents, cognitive abilities and personality traits.

Wealth inequality and intergenerational mobility in Russia: possibilities of tax regulation

The economic inequality of people in Russia today is high. The decline in intergenerational mobility is determined by increasing concentration of capital. The purpose of the study is to examine the capabilities of taxes in smoothing the wealth inequality of Russians and strengthening the intergenerational mobility in the framework of assessing their relationship on the basis of the World Bank database. According to the results of the analysis, there was a decrease in the mobility between generations in Russia and emergence of the problem of consolidating the economic situation within family, which, if the present trends continue, will be intensifying. For generations born in the 1970s and 1980s, there was recorded a sharp increase in the relative indicator of immobility — the correlation coefficient between the duration of education of children and their parents, from 0.32 to 0.48. There is observed a decrease in the absolute indicators of mobility between generations — a decrease in the share of children who got a longer or higher education than their parents. The Great Gatsby Curve has been transformed in the coordinates of the concentration coefficient of net personal wealth and relative intergenerational mobility in education. Russia’s position on the Great Gatsby Curve indicates aggravation of two related problems — consolidation of inequality and reduction of mobility between generations. To level the economic inequality in Russia, it is necessary to increase vertical mobility between generations. One of the traditional and effective ways of the state regulation of the polarization of personal assets and property of citizens is tax regulation. Today in Russia, property taxes do not help to smooth out the inequality. Personal income tax on donations and property taxes of citizens make in total about 1% of the tax revenues of the consolidated budget. Concentration of wealth in 10% of the most affluent Russians exceeded 74% in 2021. Progressive taxation of personal property, increased rates for owners of many real estate objects, ««luxury tax», inheritance and gift tax, as well as capital taxation have prospects from the standpoint of smoothing wealth inequality and activating intergenerational mobility in Russia.

I Guess We are from Very Different Backgrounds: Attitudes Towards Social Justice and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in European Societies

I Guess We are from Very Different Backgrounds: Attitudes Towards Social Justice and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in European Societies

Motivation and Intergenerational Educational Mobility

Abstract: This study aimed to identify whether motivation to learn has a statistically significant effect on intergenerational educational mobility among Brazilian university students. Although qualitative studies have proposed the existence of this relationship, quantitative evidence still needs to be discovered. We sought to identify the characteristics that might be fostered to enable students to complete primary education and pursue higher education. To answer the research question, we used data from a sample of 1,031 individuals collected via a structured questionnaire and estimated an ordered logistic regression model with intergenerational educational mobility as the dependent variable and motivation as the key independent variable. The results showed that more motivated individuals were more likely to be educationally upwardly mobile in relation to their parents. However, such cases were more likely to occur when there was low mobility, with the father or mother having completed high school. This study’s findings would help public policymakers seeking to promote intergenerational educational mobility and reduce inequality. The results suggest motivation can be fostered and developed in children and adolescents, and the mechanisms for doing so, be they extrinsic or even intrinsic, need to be considered.

Social mobility and mental health in Canada.

To investigate whether intergenerational mobility in education and income are associated with levels of psychological distress in Canada, a context in which rates of intergenerational mobility are higher than those of the United States but lower than those of Nordic countries. The data came from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults (LISA) linked to tax records from the Canada Revenue Agency (N = 4100). Diagonal reference models were used to investigate whether educational mobility and income mobility were associated with levels of psychological distress in adulthood as assessed by the Kessler (K-10) scale. The models controlled for sociodemographic characteristics and were stratified by gender. Although we did not find that mobility in general was associated with greater levels of psychological distress, we found that downward educational mobility in particular corresponded to higher levels of psychological distress (b = 0.15 with 95% CI = 0.00, 0.31) among men. Overall, we found no strong evidence that social mobility in general is impactful for levels of psychological distress, but downward educational mobility in particular may have negative consequences for the mental health of men. In addition, a notable gradient between income and psychological distress in adulthood was observed for both women and men.

Does intergenerational educational mobility vary by sexual identity? A comparative analysis of five OECD countries.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are disadvantaged in terms of health and socio-economic status compared with heterosexual people, yet findings pertaining to educational outcomes vary depending on the specific identity and gender considered. This study delves into these unexplained findings by applying a social-stratification lens, thereby providing an account of how intergenerational educational mobility varies by sexual identity. To accomplish this, we use representative data from five OECD countries and a regression-based empirical specification relying on coarsened exact matching. We find that gay and lesbian people have higher educational attainment than heterosexual people in all five countries and that these higher levels of education stem from greater rates of upward educational mobility among gay/lesbian people. There were, however, few differences between heterosexual and bisexual people. Variation across countries emerged when analyses were stratified by gender, with higher rates of upward mobility observed for gay men in Australia, Chile, the United Kingdom, and the United States and lesbian women in Australia and Germany. Overall, our results align with previous claims that education can be a strategy for gay/lesbian people to avoid actual or anticipated discrimination. However, variation in these patterns across groups suggests that other mechanisms may also be at play.

Social mobility and economic development

AbstractWe explore the relationship between social mobility and economic development. First, we map the geography of intergenerational mobility in education for 52 Latin American regions, and examine its evolution over time. Then, through a new weighting procedure considering the level of participation of various cohorts in the economy in each year, we estimate the association between changes in mobility and regional economic indicators, such as income per capita, inequality, poverty, labor formality, and luminosity. Our findings show that increasing social mobility is consistently associated with economic development and growth in Latin America.

Occupational dualism and intergenerational educational mobility in the rural economy: evidence from China and India

We extend the Becker-Tomes model to a rural economy with farm-nonfarm occupational dualism to study intergenerational educational mobility in rural China and India. Using data free of coresidency bias, we find that fathers’ nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining sons schooling in India, but separable in China. Sons faced lower mobility in India irrespective of fathers’ occupation. Sensitivity analysis using the Altonji et al. (J. Polit. Econ. 113(1), 151–84, 2005) approach suggests that genetic correlations alone could explain the intergenerational persistence in China, but not in India. Farm-nonfarm differences in returns to education, and geographic mobility are plausible mechanisms behind the contrasting cross-country evidence.

Trends in Intergenerational Education Mobility in Bangladesh

When children are able to progress beyond their parents’ education level, that is, when there is upward intergenerational education mobility—they are more likely to have better opportunities and access than their parents in terms of jobs and income. For any nation, it is important to understand the trajectory of intergenerational education mobility and ask: Has it been increasing? In the case of Bangladesh, our study is the first to use nationally representative household survey data to explore the trend of intergenerational education mobility. We compute intergenerational education mobility separately for three different years—2005, 2010 and 2016, and find that intergenerational education mobility has, from 2005 to 2016, significantly decreased in terms of fathers’ education. This is surprising given that the expansion of education has been a target both policy-wise and action-wise—for Bangladesh over the last few decades. The finding in terms of mothers’ education—that intergenerational education mobility has significantly increased from 2005 to 2016—makes more sense given the focus on female education expansion in Bangladesh over the years. Moreover, our results indicate that daughters, in general, have been progressing better compared to sons in terms of intergenerational (father–child) education mobility and that children of fathers with higher education levels progressed better than children of fathers with lower education levels. We suggest policies accordingly and emphasize the need to investigate the reasons behind the father–child education immobility over time in Bangladesh.

Intergenerational mobility around the world: A new database

Using individual data from over 400 household surveys, this paper compiles a global database of intergenerational mobility in education for 153 countries covering 97 percent of the world's population. Intergenerational mobility in education is estimated to be lower in the average developing country than in the average high-income country. Children in the developing world have been less successful at surpassing their parents' education, despite the lower levels of parental education. The poorer the country, the more likely it is that individuals born to parents who do not have an education lack the means to get an education. The world as a whole is estimated to be less mobile than the average country in it, which highlights the importance of the country in which one obtains his/her education.

The recent decline in period fertility in England and Wales: Differences associated with family background and intergenerational educational mobility

During 2010–20, period fertility in England and Wales fell to its lowest recorded level. The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the decline in period fertility in two dimensions: differentials by the education of a woman's parents (family background) and by a woman's education in relation to that of her parents (intergenerational educational mobility). The analysis finds a substantial decline in fertility in each education group, whether defined by a woman's parents’ education alone or by a woman's own education relative to her parents’ education. Considering parents’ and women's own education together helps differentiate fertility further than analysing either generation's education in isolation. Using these educational mobility groups more clearly shows a narrowing of TFR differentials over the decade, but timing differences persist.

Religion and educational mobility in Africa

The African people and leaders1,2 have long seen education as a driving force of development and liberation, a view shared by international institutions3,4, as schooling has large economic and non-economic returns, particularly in low-income settings5. In this study, we examine the educational progress across faiths throughout postcolonial Africa, home to some of the world’s largest Christian and Muslim communities. We construct comprehensive religion-specific measures of intergenerational mobility in education using census data from 2,286 districts in 21 countries and document the following. First, Christians have better mobility outcomes than Traditionalists and Muslims. Second, differences in intergenerational mobility between Christians and Muslims persist among those residing in the same district, in households with comparable economic and family backgrounds. Third, although Muslims benefit as much as Christians when they move early in life to high-mobility regions, they are less likely to do so. Their low internal mobility accentuates the educational deficit, as Muslims reside on average in areas that are less urbanized and more remote with limited infrastructure. Fourth, the Christian–Muslim gap is most prominent in areas with large Muslim communities, where the latter also register the lowest emigration rates. As African governments and international organizations invest heavily in educational programmes, our findings highlight the need to understand better the private and social returns to schooling across faiths in religiously segregated communities and to carefully think about religious inequalities in the take-up of educational policies6.