essay on education and social mobility

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School Is for Social Mobility

By John N. Friedman

Mr. Friedman is an economist at Brown whose work focuses on how to use big data to improve life outcomes.

America is often hailed as a land of opportunity, a place where all children, no matter their family background, have the chance to succeed. Data measuring how low-income children tend to fare in adulthood, however, suggest this may be more myth than reality.

Less than one in 13 children born into poverty in the United States will go on to hold a high-income job in adulthood; the odds are far longer for Black men born into poverty, at one in 40 .

Education is the solution to this lack of mobility. There are still many ways in which the current education system generates its own inequities, and many of these have been exacerbated by Covid-19 closures. But the pandemic also revealed a potential path forward by galvanizing support for education funding at levels rarely seen before. With the right level of investment, education can not only provide more pathways out of poverty for individuals, but also restore the equality of opportunity that is supposed to lie at America’s core.

It is certainly not a new idea that education can change a child’s life trajectory. Almost everyone has some formative school memory — a teacher with whom everything made sense, an art project that opened new doors or a sports championship that bonded teammates for life.

But what is new is the torrent of research studies using “big data” to show the power of education for shaping children’s trajectories, especially over the long term. In one study, for example, my co-authors and I found that students who were randomly assigned to higher-quality classrooms earned substantially more 20 years later, about $320,000 over their lifetimes. And it’s not only the early grades that matter; research suggests the quality of education in later grades may be even more important for long-term outcomes, as children’s brains don’t lock in key neural pathways for advanced reasoning skills until well into their teenage years.

Education changes lives in ways that go far beyond economic gains. The data show clearly that children who get better schooling are healthier and happier adults, more civically engaged and less likely to commit crimes . Schools not only teach students academic skills but also noncognitive skills, like grit and teamwork, which are increasingly important for generating social mobility. Even the friendships that students form at school can be life-altering forces for social mobility, because children who grow up in more socially connected communities are much more likely to rise up out of poverty.

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Thirteen Economic Facts about Social Mobility and the Role of Education

Thirteen Economic Facts About Social Mobility and the Role of Education - Full Policy Memo

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Michael greenstone, adam looney, jeremy patashnik, and muxin yu, the hamilton project mgaljpamythp michael greenstone, adam looney, jeremy patashnik, and muxin yu, the hamilton project.

June 26, 2013

22 min read

This Hamilton Project policy memo provides thirteen economic facts on the growth of income inequality and its relationship to social mobility in America; on the growing divide in educational opportunities and outcomes for high- and low-income students; and on the pivotal role education can play in increasing the ability of low-income Americans to move up the income ladder.

Read the full introduction »

It is well known that the income divide in the United States has increased substantially over the last few decades, a trend that is particularly true for families with children. In fact, according to Census Bureau data, more than one-third of children today are raised in families with lower incomes than comparable children thirty-five years ago. This sustained erosion of income among such a broad group of children is without precedent in recent American history. Over the same period, children living in the highest 5 percent of the family-income distribution have seen their families’ incomes double.

What is less well known, however, is that mounting evidence hints that the forces behind these divergent experiences are threatening the upward mobility of the youngest Americans, and that inequality of income for one generation may mean inequality of opportunity for the next. It is too early to say for certain whether the rise in income inequality over the past few decades has caused a fall in social mobility of the poor and those in the middle class—the first generation of Americans to grow up under this inequality is, on average, in high school—but the early signs are troubling.

Investments in education and skills, which are factors that increasingly determine outcomes in the job market, are becoming more stratified by family income. As income inequality has increased, wealthier parents are able to invest more in their children’s education and enrichment, increasing the already sizable difference in investment from those at the other end of the earnings distribution. This disparity has real and measurable consequences for the current generation of American children. Although cognitive tests of ability show little difference between children of high- and low-income parents in the first years of their lives, large and persistent differences start emerging before kindergarten. Among older children, evidence suggests that the gap between high- and low-income primary and secondary-school students has increased by almost 40 percent over the past thirty years.

These differences persist and widen into young adulthood and beyond. Just as the gap in K–12 test scores between high and low-income students is growing, the difference in college graduation rates between the rich and the poor is also growing. Although the college graduation rate among the poorest households increased by about 4 percentage points between those born in the early 1960s and those born in the early 1980s, over this same period, the graduation rate increased by almost 20 percentage points for the wealthiest households.

Given how important education and, in particular, a college degree are in the labor market, these trends give rise to concerns that last generation’s inequities will be perpetuated into the next generation and opportunities for upward social mobility will be diminished. The emphasis that American society places on upward mobility makes this alarming in and of itself. In addition, low levels of social mobility may ultimately shift public support toward policies to address such inequities, instead of toward policies intended to promote economic growth.

While the urgency of finding solutions to this challenge requires rethinking a broad range of social and economic policies, we believe that any successful approach will necessitate increasing the skills and human capital of Americans. Decades of research demonstrate that policies that improve the quality of and expand access to early-childhood, K–12, and higher education can be effective at ameliorating these stark differences in economic opportunities across households.

Indeed, making it easier and more affordable for low-income students to attend college has long been a vehicle for upward mobility. Over the past fifty years, policies that have increased access to higher education, from the GI Bill to student aid, have not only helped lift thousands of Americans into the middle class and beyond, but also have boosted the productivity, innovation, and resources of the American economy.

Fortunately, researchers are making rapid progress in identifying new approaches that complement or improve on long-standing federal aid programs to boost college attendance and completion among lower-income students. These new interventions, which include high school and college mentoring, targeted informational interventions, and behavioral approaches to nudge students into better outcomes, could form the basis of important new policies that aim to steer more students toward college.

A founding principle of The Hamilton Project’s economic strategy is that long-term prosperity is best achieved by fostering economic growth and broad participation in that growth. This principle is particularly relevant in the context of social mobility, wherein broad participation in growth can contribute to further growth by providing families with the ability to invest in their children and communities, optimism that their hard work and efforts will lead to success for them and their children, and openness to innovation and change that lead to new sources of economic growth.

In this spirit, we offer our “Thirteen Economic Facts about Social Mobility and the Role of Education.” In chapter 1, we examine the very different changes in income between American families at opposite ends of the income distribution over the last thirty-five years and the seemingly dominant role that a child’s family income plays in determining his or her future economic outcomes. In chapter 2, we provide evidence on the growing divide in the United States in educational opportunities and outcomes based on family income. In chapter 3, we explore the great potential of education to increase upward mobility for all Americans, with a special focus on what we know about how to increase college attendance and completion for low-income students.

Chapter 1: Inequality Is Rising against a Background of Low Social Mobility

Central to the American ethos is the notion that it is possible to start out poor and become more prosperous: that hard work—not simply the circumstances you were born into—offers real prospects for success. But there is a growing gap between families at the top and bottom of the income distribution, raising concerns about the ability of today’s disadvantaged to work their way up the economic ladder.

1. Family incomes have declined for a third of American children over the past few decades.

Although family income has increased by an average of 37 percent between 1975 and 2011, family incomes have actually declined for the poorest third of children.

Figure 1 illustrates the diverging fortunes of children based on their family’s income, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau. Children in families at the top of the income distribution have experienced sizable gains in their families’ incomes and resources since 1975. Children living in the top 5 percent of families, for instance, have seen a doubling of their families’ incomes. But such gains have been more modest for children in the middle of the distribution, and children living in lower-income families have experienced outright declines in incomes. In fact, in 2011 the bottom 35 percent of children lived in families with lower reported incomes than comparable children thirty-six years earlier.

Because of widening disparities in the earnings of their parents and changes in family structure—particularly the increase in single-parent families—the family resources available to lesswell- off children are falling behind those available to their higher-income peers.

2. Countries with high income inequality have low social mobility.

Many are concerned that rising income inequality will lead to declining social mobility. Figure 2, recently coined “The Great Gatsby Curve,” takes data from several countries at a single point in time to show the relationship between inequality and immobility. Inequality is measured using Gini coefficients, a common metric that economists use to determine how much of a nation’s income is concentrated among the wealthy; social mobility is measured using intergenerational earnings elasticity, an indicator of how much children’s future earnings depend on the earnings of their parents.

Although, as the figure shows, higher levels of inequality are positively correlated with reductions in social mobility, we do not know whether inequality causes reductions in mobility. After all, there are many important factors that vary between countries that might explain this relationship. Nonetheless, figure 2 represents a provocative observation with potentially important policy ramifications.

What figure 2 makes clear is that, although most people think of the United States as the land of opportunity—where hard workers from any background can prosper—the reality is far less encouraging. In fact, in terms of both income inequality and social mobility, the United States is in the middle of the pack when compared to other nations, most of which are democratic countries with market economies.

3. Upward social mobility is limited in the United States.

While social mobility and economic opportunity are important aspects of the American ethos, the data suggest they are more myth than reality. In fact, a child’s family income plays a dominant role in determining his or her future income, and those who start out poor are likely to remain poor.

Figure 3 shows the chances that a child’s future earnings will place him in the lowest quintile (that is, the bottom 20 percent of the earnings distribution, shown by the green bars) or the highest quintile (that is, the top 20 percent of the distribution, purple bars) depending on where his parents fell in the distribution (from left to right on the figure, the lowest, middle, and highest quintiles). In a completely mobile society, all children would have the same likelihood of ending up in any part of the income distribution; in this case, all bars on figure 3 would be at 20 percent, denoted by the bold line.

The figure demonstrates that children of well-off families are disproportionately likely to stay well off and children of poor families are very likely to remain poor. For example, a child born to parents with income in the lowest quintile is more than ten times more likely to end up in the lowest quintile than the highest as an adult (43 percent versus 4 percent). And, a child born to parents in the highest quintile is five times more likely to end up in the highest quintile than the lowest (40 percent versus 8 percent). These results run counter to the historic vision of the United States as a land of equal opportunity.

Chapter 2: The United States Is Experiencing a Growing Divide in Educational Investments and Outcomes Based on Family Income

Although children of high- and low-income families are born with similar abilities, high-income parents are increasingly investing more in their children. As a result, the gap between high- and low-income students in K–12 test scores, college attendance and completion, and graduation rates is growing.

4. The children of high- and low-income families are born with similar abilities but different opportunities.

In examining the opportunity gap between high- and low-income children, it is important to begin at the beginning— birth. The evidence suggests that children of high- and low-income families start out with similar abilities but rapidly diverge in outcomes.

At the earliest ages, there is almost no difference in cognitive ability between high- and low-income individuals. Figure 4 shows the impact of a family’s socioeconomic status—a combination of income, education, and occupation—on the cognitive ability of infants between eight and twelve months of age, as measured in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey. Although it is obviously difficult to measure the cognitive ability of infants, this ECLS metric has been shown to be modestly predictive of IQ at age five (Fryer and Levitt 2013).

Controlling for age, number of siblings, race, and other environmental factors, the effects of socioeconomic status are small and statistically insignificant. A child born into a family in the highest socioeconomic quintile, for example, can expect to score only 0.02 standard deviations higher on a test of cognitive ability than an average child, while one born into a family in the lowest socioeconomic quintile can expect to score about 0.03 standard deviations lower—hardly a measurable difference and statistically insignificant. By contrast, other factors, such as age, gender, and birth order, have a greater impact on abilities at the earliest stages of life.

Despite similar starting points, by age four, children in the highest income quintile score, on average, in the 69th percentile on tests of literacy and mathematics, while children in the lowest income quintile score in the 34th and 32nd percentile, respectively (Waldfogel and Washbrook 2011). Research suggests that these differences arise largely due to factors related to a child’s home environment and family’s socioeconomic status (Fryer and Levitt 2004).

5. There is a widening gap between the investments that high- and low-income families make in their children.

Although we may all enter the world on similar footing, the deck is stacked against children born into low-income households. One significant consequence of growing income inequality is that, by historical standards, high-income households are spending much more on their children’s education than low-income households. Figure 5 shows enrichment expenditures—SAT prep, private tutors, computers, music lessons, and the like—by income level.

Over the past four decades, families at the top of the income ladder have increased spending in these areas dramatically, from just over $3,500 to nearly $9,000 per child per year (in constant 2008 dollars). By comparison, those at the bottom of the income distribution have increased their spending since the early 1970s from less than $850 to about $1,300. The difference is still stark: high-income families have gone from spending slightly more than four times as much as low-income families to nearly seven times more.

Parents of higher socioeconomic status invest not only more money in their children, but more time as well. On average, mothers with a college degree spend 4.5 more hours each week engaging with their children than mothers with only a high school diploma or less (Guryan, Hurst, and Kearney 2008). This means that, among other things, by age three, children of parents who are professionals have vocabularies that are 50 percent larger than those of children from working-class families, and 100 percent larger than those of children whose families receive welfare, disparities that some researchers ascribe to differences in how much parents engage and speak with their children. By the time they are three, children born to parents who are professionals have heard about 30 million more words than children born to parents who receive welfare (Hart and Risley 1995).

6. The achievement gap between high- and low-income students has increased.

Disparities in what parents can invest in their children—whether time or money—appear to have important consequences for children’s success in school. While many factors play a role in shaping scholastic achievement, family income is one of the most persistent and significant. In fact, the income achievement gap—the role that wealth plays in educational attainment—has been increasing over the past five decades. By comparing test results of children from families at the 90th income percentile to those of children from families at the 10th percentile, researchers have found that the gap has grown by about 40 percent over the past thirty years (Reardon 2011).

Figure 6 shows that the income achievement gap as estimated for students born in 2001 is over 1.2 standard deviations. To put this in perspective, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an average student advances between 1.2 and 1.5 standard deviations between fourth and eighth grade. The achievement gap between high- and low-income students, then, is on par with the gap between eighth graders and fourth graders.

This growing test-score gap mirrors the diverging parental investments of high- and low-income families (figure 5). As with parental investment, the test scores of low-income students have shown modest gains over the past few decades, while those of high-income students have shown large increases. The gap between high- and low-income students, therefore, is not an instance of the poor doing worse while the wealthy are doing better; rather, it is that students from wealthier families are pulling away from their lower-income peers.

7. College graduation rates have increased sharply for wealthy students but stagnated for low-income students.

College graduation rates have increased dramatically over the past few decades, but most of these increases have been achieved by high-income Americans. Figure 7 shows the change in graduation rates for individuals born between 1961 and 1964 and those born between 1979 and 1982. The graduation rates are reported separately for children in each quartile of the income distribution.

In every income quartile, the proportion graduating from college increased, but the size of that increase varied considerably. While the highest income quartile saw an 18 percentage-point increase in the graduation rate between these birth cohorts, the lowest income quartile saw only a 4 percentage-point increase.

This graduation-rate gap may have important implications for social mobility and inequality. Given the importance of a college degree in today’s labor market, rising disparities in college completion portend rising disparities in outcomes in the future.

8. High-income families dominate enrollment at America’s selective colleges.

The gap between high- and low-income groups in college outcomes extends beyond college graduation rates. Students from higher-income families also apply to and enroll in moreselective colleges. Figure 8 reports the percent of students at more- and less-selective schools that come from families in the top and bottom quartiles of the socioeconomic status distribution (a combination of parental income, education, and occupation).

The figure demonstrates that the most-competitive colleges are attended almost entirely by students from higher–socioeconomic status households. Indeed, the more competitive the institution, the greater the percentage of the student body that comes from the top quartile, and the smaller the percentage from the bottom quartile. At institutions ranked as “most competitive”—those with more-selective admissions and that require high grades and SAT scores— the wealthiest students out-populate the poorest students by a margin of fourteen to one (Carnevale and Strohl 2010). By contrast, at institutions ranked as “less-competitive” and “noncompetitive,” the lowest–socioeconomic status students are over-represented.

Chapter 3: Education Can Play a Pivotal Role in Improving Social Mobility

Promoting increased social mobility requires reexamining a wide range of economic, health, social, and education policies. Higher education has always been a key way for poor Americans to find opportunities to transform their economic circumstances. In a time of rising inequality and low social mobility, improving the quality of and access to education has the potential to increase equality of opportunity for all Americans.

9. A college degree can be a ticket out of poverty.

The earnings of college graduates are much higher than for nongraduates, and that is especially true among people born into low-income families. Figure 9 shows the earnings outcomes for individuals born into the lowest quintile of the income distribution, depending on whether they earned a college degree. In a perfectly mobile society, an individual would have an equal chance of ending up in any of the five quintiles, and all the bars would be level with the bold line.

As the figure shows, however, without a college degree a child born into a family in the lowest quintile has a 45 percent chance of remaining in that quintile as an adult and only a 5 percent chance of moving into the highest quintile. On the other hand, children born into the lowest quintile who do earn a college degree have only a 16 percent chance of remaining in the lowest quintile and a 19 percent chance of breaking into the top quintile. In other words, a low-income individual without a college degree will very likely remain in the lower part of the earnings distribution, whereas a low-income individual with a college degree could just as easily land in any income quintile—including the highest.

10. The sticker price of college has increased significantly in the past decade, but the actual price for many lower- and middle-income students has not.

In the past decade, increases in the sticker price of attending college have made going to college appear, for some, prohibitively expensive. Published tuition and fees for the 2012–13 academic year are projected to average $26,060 for private four-year institutions, and $8,860 in-state for public four-year institutions (College Board 2012). But before allowing this sticker price to be a deterrent, students must look deeper to learn whether those costs apply to them. Looking at net tuition—the price that the average student actually pays after financial aid—the picture is very different.

Because of increases in federal, state, and college-provided financial aid, not only is average net tuition much lower than average published tuition, but it has also increased at a much lower rate than published tuition in the past ten years. As seen in figure 10, net in-state tuition and fees at public four-year colleges have only increased by an average of $1,420 since 2002, which is less than half of the increase in the published rate. Although published tuition at private four-year colleges has increased by an average of $6,090 since 2002, net tuition has only increased by $230. In fact, the projected average net tuition at private four-year colleges for the academic year 2012–13 is 3.7 percent lower than the average net tuition in 2007–08 and lower than all five academic years between 2004–05 and 2008–09 (College Board 2012).

For many households, high costs of tuition are a burden. Once families and students have a sense of what financial aid they are eligible for, they can get a more accurate idea of the actual price tag for tuition. For each student, the net cost is the important consideration when making educational decisions.

11. Few investments yield as high a return as a college degree.

Obtaining a college degree can significantly boost one’s income. Over the past three years, individuals between the ages of thirty and fifty who graduated from high school but did not attend college could expect to earn less than $30,000 per year. Those whose highest level of educational attainment was a bachelor’s degree earned just under $60,000 per year, and those with an advanced degree earned over $80,000.

But even individuals who attend college and do not obtain a degree still see an increase in their annual earnings. Those who leave college before receiving a credential or degree earn about $7,000 per year more than those with only a high school diploma, and individuals holding an associate’s degree earn over $10,000 more.

Higher education is one of the best investments an individual can make. As shown in figure 11, the returns to earning an associate’s, professional, or bachelor’s degree exceed 15 percent, and even the average return to attending some college for those who do not earn a degree is 9 percent. In comparison, the average return to an investment in the stock market is a little over 5 percent; gold, ten-year Treasury bonds, T-bills, and housing are 3 percent or less.

Although the return to an associate’s degree really stands out, this high return partially reflects the lower cost of an associate’s degree rather than a major boost to long-run earnings. Over a lifetime, the earnings of an associate’s degree recipient are roughly $170,000 higher than those of a high school graduate, while the earnings of a bachelor’s degree holder are $570,000 more than those of a high school graduate.

While it is likely that college graduates have different aptitudes and ambitions that might affect earnings and thus the resulting economic returns, a large body of academic research suggests there is a strong causal relationship between increases in education and increases in earnings (Card 2001).

12. Students are borrowing more to attend college—and defaulting more frequently on their loans.

Over the past decade, the volume and frequency of student loans have increased significantly. The share of twenty-five-year-olds with student debt has risen by about 15 percentage points since 2004, and the amount of student debt incurred by those under the age of thirty has more than doubled (Lee 2013).

Despite these increases, the majority of students appear to borrow prudently. About 90 percent have loan balances less than $50,000, and 40 percent have balances under $10,000 (Fry 2012). Given that a college graduate can expect to earn, on average, about $30,000 more per year than a high school graduate over the course of his or her life, the returns to college appear to warrant the cost of student loans for most students.

Still, recent trends in student loans raise questions and concerns that merit further investigation. For one, it is unclear why student debt is increasing at its current trajectory. Neither college enrollment nor net college tuition has risen dramatically enough over the past decade to explain the rapid upsurge. Second, even though most students have a relatively low total loan balance, the default rate has increased significantly over the past decade: the share of those more than ninety days delinquent rose from under 10 percent in 2004 to about 18 percent in 2012 (figure 12b). While the returns to investments in college remain high, it will be important for policymakers to better understand why debt and delinquency rates have increased over the past decade.

13. New low-cost interventions can encourage more low-income students to attend, remain enrolled in, and increase economic diversity at even top colleges.

To promote social mobility, enabling more low- and middle-income students to pay for college with federal grants is one of the most important goals that policymakers can pursue. For the past several decades, the main tools for achieving this goal have been Pell grants, Stafford loans, or merit-based aid such as the state of Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship. Researchers estimate that, depending on the exact program, the effect of $1,000 of college aid is an increase of 3 to 6 percentage points in college enrollment (Deming and Dynarski 2009). As figure 13 shows, this translates into a total cost of between $20,000 and $30,000 to send one additional student to college through these aid programs. To put this in context, the average difference in earnings between a college graduate and a high school graduate is almost $30,000 per year, so these programs are likely to be beneficial on net.

Figure 13 also reports on new, low-cost interventions that can complement federal and state aid programs to send more kids to college and to better schools, and to convince them to stay in college once they get there. One study finds that simplifying and assisting low-income students in the financial aid application process increases college enrollment by about 8 percentage points, and costs less than $100 per student (Bettinger et al. 2009). And, on a per student basis, employing mentors to coach students on the value of staying in college beyond their freshman years is $10,000 less expensive than need- or merit-based scholarships (Bettinger and Baker 2011).

Another study found that mailing high-achieving, low-income students personalized information on their college options nudged those students to apply to better schools. At a cost of only $6 per student contacted, this intervention increased low-income students’ applications to selective schools by more than 30 percentage points (Hoxby and Turner 2013).

Education and Social Mobility

John P. Neelsen
Published in Comparative Education Review 1 February 1975
Education, Sociology

The Benefits of Education and Social Mobility

Categories: Importance of Education Social Mobility

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Education and Social Mobility: A Pathway to Advancement

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Social Mobility and Higher Education

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First Online: 01 January 2020
pp 2557–2562
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Vikki Boliver 3 &
Paul Wakeling 4

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Absolute mobility ; Relative mobility ; Social fluidity ; Social openness

The impact of participation in tertiary-level education on the movement of individuals up or down the social class structure from one generation to the next (intergenerational mobility) or during the course of a career (intragenerational mobility).

Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals between different positions in the social structure over time. Closed societies are characterized by ascription, whereby social position is assigned early in life and is difficult to change. Contemporary notions of the good society instead emphasize openness and a shift from ascription to attainment, whereby social position is not determined by inheritance but rather by ability, effort, and disposition. Within sociology, studies of social mobility focus on the association between parental and filial social position across generations, typically employing occupational social class as the key measure.

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Boliver, V., Wakeling, P. (2020). Social Mobility and Higher Education. In: Teixeira, P.N., Shin, J.C. (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8905-9_43

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Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods, and Determinants

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7 Educational Mobility in the Developing World

Published: December 2021
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This chapter reviews the small but growing literature on intergenerational educational mobility in the developing world. Education is a critical determinant of economic wellbeing, and it predicts a range of nonpecuniary outcomes such as marriage, fertility, health, crime, and political attitudes. We show that developing nations feature stronger intergenerational educational persistence than high-income countries, in spite of substantial educational expansion in the last decades. We consider variations in mobility across gender and region, and discuss the macro-level correlates of educational mobility in developing countries. The chapter also discusses the literatures on concepts and measurement of educational mobility, theoretical perspectives to understand educational mobility across generations, and the role that education plays in the economic mobility process, and it applies these literatures to understand educational mobility in the developing world.

7.1 Introduction

Educational mobility captures the association between parents’ and adult children’s schooling attainment. Along with measures of occupational and economic mobility, it provides information about equality of opportunity in society. A strong association signals that the chances to attain formal schooling are largely determined by the advantages of birth. A weak association suggests that everyone, regardless of family educational resources, has similar chances to attain high (or low) levels of schooling.

While much mobility research focuses on occupational and economic indicators such as earnings, income, class, or occupational status, schooling is a distinct and important socioeconomic domain. Educational attainment is the main predictor of earnings in contemporary societies, and the earnings returns to schooling are greater in developing than in wealthy countries (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2018 ). Educational attainment has intrinsic value, and it predicts a range of nonpecuniary outcomes including health, longevity, fertility, marriage and parenting, crime, political participation, and attitudes, in both the developing and the developed world (Cutler and Lleras-Muney 2008 ; Lochner 2013 ; Omariba 2006 ; Oreopoulos and Salvanes 2011 ).

As well as being a relevant outcome in its own right, educational attainment plays a central role in the process of intergenerational economic and occupational mobility. Education has been found to be the main vehicle both for economic persistence across generations and for intergenerational mobility (Hout and DiPrete 2006 ). Education is the main vehicle for persistence because advantaged parents are able to afford more and better education for their children. Education is at the same time the main vehicle for economic mobility because most of the variance in educational attainment is not tied to social origins.

Studying educational mobility also has practical advantages compared with economic mobility. Most people complete their education by their early adulthood. As a result, measures of educational attainment among adults at a single point in time provide highly valid and stable information about completed schooling. This contrasts with measures of earnings, which can vary widely from year to year. As a result, researchers need to obtain multiple measures over time in order to approach a measure of ‘permanent earnings’ (Friedman 1957 ).

Furthermore, questions about educational attainment are usually not perceived as sensitive by survey respondents, and they have good recall, refusal, and reliability properties. This is particularly advantageous when information about parents’ education is retrospectively reported by adult children, which is the case of most surveys in the developing world.

Because of these practical advantages, intergenerational educational mobility has been measured in many countries of the world, including developing and wealthy nations. An early cross-country assessment of mobility across cohorts born from the 1930s to the 1970s included 42 countries (Hertz et al. 2008 ). A recent update considered 148 nations, with good representation across all continents (World Bank 2018 ).

Researchers have found substantial variation in intergenerational educational mobility across the world, with Northern European countries usually featuring the highest levels of mobility, and Latin American countries until recently featuring the lowest levels. Even if the exact rankings vary somewhat depending on the measure used (more on this later), these country rankings closely resemble rankings based on intergenerational earnings mobility, suggesting a close association between these measures. Both economic and educational mobility are related to economic inequality in cross-sectional comparisons across countries, such that the Great Gatsby Curve applies to both measures. In fact, the few analyses that have explicitly compared measures of educational and economic mobility have found a strong although by no means perfect correlation between the two (Björklund and Jäntti 2011 ; Blanden 2013 ).

Even if basic descriptive analyses of educational mobility are available for a large number of developing countries, the study of educational mobility in the developing world has been limited. First, the study of mechanisms for the intergenerational educational association is largely restricted to wealthy countries. Second, there is only a small literature on the association between mobility and macro-level factors such as economic development and public educational spending, as well as on the impact of economic crises on educational mobility in developing countries. Moreover, this literature is scattered and focused on some countries in the developing world, such as Latin American nations, India, and South Africa.

This review will consider the trends and patterns of educational mobility in the developing world. We will explicitly compare these patterns with the developed world whenever possible, in order to gain analytical insight and to examine the relevance of context. The review is organized as follows. Section 7.2 examines concepts and measures of educational mobility. Section 7.3 examines theoretical approaches to accounting for the mechanisms of intergenerational educational persistence. Section 7.4 reviews patterns and trends of intergenerational educational mobility around the world, with an emphasis on developing regions. The section also examines differences in mobility by gender and macro-level correlates of educational mobility. Finally, Section 7.5 focuses on the relationship between educational and economic mobility, and the role of education in the intergenerational transmission of economic advantage and mentions policy implications of the literature.

7.2 Concepts and measures in the study of intergenerational educational mobility

Educational mobility captures the association between parents’ schooling attainment and their children’s attainment. Two types of mobility provide complementary information. Absolute mobility captures the total observed change in educational attainment across generations. Overall change across generations is driven by both educational upgrades affecting the entire population over time, and the allocation of education based on parents’ education net of overall upgrade. Typical measures of absolute mobility include the proportion of individuals with higher levels of educational attainment than their parents (upward mobility) and those with less attainment than their parents (downward mobility). Relative mobility, in turn, captures the association between parents’ and children’s education net of any change in the distribution of schooling across generations.

The analysis of educational mobility tends to focus on relative mobility. This is understandable given that this measure provides a more direct assessment of equality of opportunity in society. However, educational expansion provides an important impetus for absolute educational mobility as experienced by individuals, particularly in contexts, such as developing countries, where access to formal education has expanded greatly across cohorts. For example, Brazilians born in 1990 attained on average 10 years of schooling. In contrast, their parents attained on average only six years of schooling (Leone 2017 ). This substantial upward mobility might be entirely consistent with no increase in relative mobility if, in a context in which everyone benefits from educational expansion, the allocation of educational gains remains as strongly tied to parents’ education as before.

7.2.1 How is educational mobility measured?

The specific measures of absolute and relative educational mobility depend on how educational attainment is operationalized: either as a continuous measure of the total number of years of schooling completed, or as a set of ordered categories that capture educational milestones such as completing primary education, continuing into secondary school, completing secondary school, etc. This categorical classification assumes that educational attainment is not a continuous accumulation of years of schooling, and that the effect of attaining one additional year might vary dramatically across levels.

7.2.2 Years of schooling

When educational attainment is operationalized as years of schooling, mobility is measured by means of a linear regression coefficient or a correlation coefficient linking parents’ and adult children’s schooling. These measures provide simple summary accounts that are easy to obtain and interpret. Their validity is based on the assumption that the intergenerational educational association is linear, which may be an oversimplification in some contexts (for example, there is evidence that the association might be stronger among parents with high levels of education).

The main difference between the intergenerational educational regression (IER) coefficient and the intergenerational educational correlation (IEC) coefficient is that the former is affected by the dispersion of parents’ and children’s education, and the latter nets out the dispersion in both generations, creating a standardized metric that ranges between –1 and +1. The correlation coefficient is obtained by multiplying the regression coefficient by the ratio of the standard deviations of parents’ schooling and children’s schooling.

Both measures provide valuable, complementary information. The IER has a straightforward interpretation. It captures the average change in an adult child’s years of schooling associated with each one-year increase in the parents’ schooling. For example, an IER of 0.6 indicates that for each additional year of parents’ education, children’s education is expected to increase by 0.6 years on average. The IEC, in turn, uses the metric of the standard deviation. An IEC of 0.4, for example, indicates that for each standard deviation increase in parents’ schooling, children’s schooling is predicted to increase on average by 0.4 standard deviations. Even though it is less intuitive, it has been claimed that the IEC is more stable and less prone to bias than the IER (Emran et al. 2018 ). 1

The distinction between the IER and the IEC is not merely a statistical detail, and it is particularly important when one is comparing mobility across countries or over time. A common finding in the literature is that, across cohorts, the IER declines while the IEC remains constant. 2 Given that the IEC nets out the influence of changes in the dispersion of education across generations, such a departure between measures suggests that the decline in the intergenerational association captured by changes in the IER is entirely driven by changes in the distribution of schooling of parents and/or children across cohorts, without any change in the net association over time. We advocate using both indicators whenever possible to understand the factors driving the change in educational mobility over time.

7.2.3 Educational categories

Education can also be operationalized as an ordinal variable based the completion of subsequent educational milestones such as entering formal education, completing primary education, continuing to secondary education, completing secondary education, etc. This approach reflects the fact that attainment of specific degrees or levels of schooling is particularly important for economic or other outcomes. In most countries attaining a secondary-school qualification or a college degree is a critical milestone associated with much greater economic returns than having the same number of years of schooling without the qualification or degree, likely because of the signalling function of educational credentials, a phenomenon called the sheepskin effect (e.g. Hungerford and Solon 1987 ).

When education is measured as an ordered categorical variable, measures of mobility are based on transition matrices cross-classifying the educational attainment of parents and children, and mobility is analysed using a simple row or column per cent distribution or log-linear models (Hout 1984 ). These methods can separate change in the distribution of education across generations from the net association between parents and children, providing an assessment of relative mobility. The categorical version of education also allows the analysis of educational attainment as a set of discrete conditional transitions such as primary entry, primary completion conditional on primary entry, secondary attendance conditional on primary completion, etc. (Mare 1980 ).

Most cross-country studies of intergenerational educational mobility treat educational attainment as a continuous variable and use the regression or correlation coefficient to capture associations, but a small literature focuses on categorical measures—specifically, on the probability that children will reach a particular educational level—to examine specific national cases. Categorical measures of education have been used to examine mobility in Malaysia (Lillard and Willis 2006 ), Chile (Torche 2005 ), four Latin American countries (Marteleto et al. 2012 ), and countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Assaad et al. 2019 ).

7.2.4 How to measure parents’ education?

Many surveys collect information on both fathers’ and mothers’ education, which raises the important but neglected question about how to measure parental education in order to examine intergenerational mobility. Most empirical analyses use the dominance approach (Erikson 1984 ), selecting the parent with the highest level of attainment. It is possible, however, to argue that the parent with less education is more relevant for children’s attainment, under the assumption that family dynamics adjust to the lowest common denominator in terms of schooling resources. Another alternative is to use a joint approach (Sorensen 1994 ), which combines the educational attainment of both parents. This strategy is usually implemented by taking a simple average of years of schooling of both parents, under the implicit assumption that both parents contribute equally to the child’s attainment. A more sophisticated version of this approach computes the weights for each parental indicator such that the relative contribution of the variables to explain the variation in the dependent variable is taken into account (Lubotsky and Wittenberg 2006 ).

Another criterion to select how to measure parental education is the gender of the parent. Many studies suggest that mothers are more influential than fathers on children’s educational attainment given that they spend more time with children, particularly at early ages. This approach has been used in both the developing and the developed world (Behrman and Rosenzweig 2002 ; Haveman and Wolfe 1995 ; Schultz 1993 ). Yet another approach suggests that it is the education of the same-gender parent that is more influential for children, which would suggest using a measure of the father’s schooling for sons and the mother’s schooling for daughters.

Naturally, a simpler and more comprehensive alternative would be to include both the father’s and the mother’s educational attainments separately, if available, to predict the child’s educational attainment. The drawback of this approach is that it moves researchers away from single, straightforward, and easily comparable measures of intergenerational association, towards an attempt to capture the partial association between several domains of social origins and the adult child’s educational attainment (and even worse, to interpret these associations causally). If the objective of the mobility measure is to produce a single statistic that can easily be compared across place and time, then using one single measure of parental education is recommended. Given that there is not yet clear consensus about which version of parental schooling is preferred—and reason to believe the best measure depends on context—we suggest using several measures if available and evaluating whether the results are sensitive to this choice.

7.2.5 When to measure children’s education?

Most analyses of educational mobility consider only respondents in their mid-20s or older, to increase the chances that they have completed their educational career, and to reduce right-censoring of the education measure. However, it is also possible to evaluate mobility among younger respondents who are still in school and who are co-residing with their parents. In this case, education is measured as timely grade progression, for example as the difference between the number of years of school the children would have completed if they had entered school at the normative age and advanced one grade every subsequent year, and the number of years of school that they have actually completed (e.g. Behrman et al. 1999 ).

Even if this approach does not capture the final completed schooling of young people, it has two advantages for the study of mobility in the developing world. First, it does not require intergenerational data from panel surveys, or retrospective reports of parental education by adult respondents. Rather, it only requires survey information on the educational attainment of all household members, which is usually available in the roster of household surveys. Second, because this measure of mobility captures educational attainment among children and adolescents, it provides information about recent mobility trends and their determinants. This is particularly relevant in developing countries that have experienced vast and rapid educational upgrading and policy changes with a potential impact on mobility.

Note that the use of co-residential parent–child dyads to measure educational mobility needs to be restricted to children younger than the normative age at which children leave the parental household, which is usually in late adolescence. If older co-resident children are included in the analysis, this induces the risk of bias insofar as children who continue to live with parents after late adolescence might not be a representative sample of their cohort. Emran et al. ( 2018 ) show that co-residence bias affects IER much more strongly than it does IEC. Selection bias induced by selecting co-resident children beyond their late adolescence is a concern even if the sample is restricted to children who are young adults (Francesconi and Nicoletti 2006 ).

7.3 What accounts for intergenerational educational persistence? Theoretical approaches

The standard model for understanding intergenerational mobility was formulated by Becker and Tomes ( 1979 , 1986 ) and recently expanded by Solon ( 2004 ). In this model, parents invest in the future success of their children in response to credit constraints and the child’s observed ability and other endowments. Although the Becker and Tomes model refers to income mobility, it can be easily extended to educational mobility.

Based on the Becker and Tomes approach, economists have distinguished a variety of possible pathways accounting for educational persistence across generations. These include (Björklund and Salvanes 2011 ):

Genetic transmission: more highly educated parents have higher levels of endowments that are consequential for education, such as cognitive ability, and pass them to their children.

Socialization: parents’ norms and values that are consequential for educational attainment, such as time preferences, can be passed to children through socialization.

Financial resources: more educated parents have more economic resources that can be used to alleviate borrowing constraints and the opportunity costs of education.

Choice and attainment: parents’ educational choices may directly affect children’s choices, and parents’ attainment may raise the marginal productivity of children’s education.

Sociological approaches expand the Becker and Tomes model in several directions, including the examination of the sociocultural determinants of academic performance, the sources of intergenerational persistence, and the factors driving mobility (or lack thereof) in contexts of massive educational expansion.

7.3.1 Sociocultural determinants of academic performance

Sociological theories of reproduction focus on structural factors, and in particular power dynamics, to explain the role of the educational system in society. These approaches argue that the educational system serves as an institutional device for the intergenerational persistence of economic advantage. This approach emphasizes the role that school systems play in preventing educational mobility and reproducing the status quo. For example, Bowles and Gintis ( 1976 ) discuss the role that schools play in socializing children from different socioeconomic backgrounds into hierarchical social roles, which they are expected to take based on their social origins, and which are functional to capitalism.

Probably the most influential approach to reproduction in education is Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu 1977a , 1977b ; Bourdieu and Passeron 1973 ). Bourdieu claims that schools provide a powerful vehicle to legitimize and maintain the unequal socioeconomic structure by transforming social class distinctions into educational distinctions represented as emerging from merit, and by channelling children of different social origins into different positions. Specifically, schools reward and redefine as merit the cultural capital that upper-class students build naturally at home and less privileged students lack (Bourdieu and Passeron 1973 ). These critical approaches remind us of the limits of educational expansion, and of the educational system more generally, as an institutional strategy to foster mobility.

7.3.2 Sources of intergenerational educational persistence

Boudon ( 1974 ) introduced the distinction between primary and secondary effects to explain the strong association between parents’ resources and children’s educational attainment. Primary effects express the association between individuals’ socioeconomic background and their academic performance measured by standardized test scores or grades. Secondary effects capture class-based choices net of students’ academic performance. Children of poorly educated parents will choose to leave school earlier than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds, even if they have the same levels of academic performance.

Primary effects are determined by cognitive and other endowments, financial resources, socialization, and the effect of parents’ schooling on the productivity of children’s investments in schooling. In turn, secondary effects refer to differential choices driven by class-based perceptions about the necessity of attaining a given level of schooling, the pay-off of educational attainment, the opportunity costs of remaining in the education system, and the probability of success if students remain. Ceteris paribus , children in disadvantaged families will consider it less essential or taken-for-granted to attain higher levels of education, and they will perceive the pay-off of educational attainment and the probability of educational success as lower, and the opportunity costs as higher, than their more advantaged peers.

Research in advanced industrial countries shows that secondary effects play a substantial role in explaining educational persistence, accounting for up to half of social-class differentials in educational attainment (Jackson 2013 ; Jackson et al. 2007 ). There are only a few studies distinguishing primary and secondary effects in the developing world. In the case of Egypt, Jackson and Buckner ( 2016 ) found that test score differences (primary effects) were more relevant than secondary effects for track placement in secondary education. However, secondary effects were much more relevant in explaining socioeconomic inequality in the transition to university. In Brazil, Marotta ( 2017 ) found that secondary effects predicted about half of the inequality in secondary-school completion. It is likely that the relevance of secondary effects varies by gender, but at the moment studies on the topic in the developing world have not considered differences between girls and boys.

The relevance of secondary effects in developing countries points to factors such as educational aspirations, access to information and guidance, self-esteem, and self-efficacy as potentially critical obstacles to attaining higher levels of schooling among disadvantaged children, even those with high educational performance. As shown by research in the Indian context, interventions promoting these noncognitive skills appear to have been able to improve educational attainment among poor children (Krishna and Agarwal 2017 ; Krishnan and Krutikova 2013 ).

Although it is not possible to offer a systematic comparison of primary and secondary effects between developed and developing countries, the existing studies suggest that secondary effects play as critical a role in the persistence of educational advantage across generations in developing countries as they do in high-income countries. They also have important practical implications. In many countries, attempts to address inequalities in educational attainment have focused on gaps in educational performance measured by test scores or grades. These policies are based on the presumption that the best way to reduce inequalities in educational outcomes between poor and wealthy households is to reduce inequalities in performance, and they may have led to an excessive emphasis on high-stakes testing (see e.g. National Research Council 1999). The relevance of secondary effects suggests that equalizing test scores is only one component of an effort to foster intergenerational educational mobility.

The distinction between primary and secondary effects raises the question of the factors that account for socioeconomic differences in choices given similar levels of academic performance. Breen and Goldthorpe ( 1997 ) suggest that class-based educational choices are driven by the attempt to avoid downward occupational and economic mobility. Given that the thresholds that define downward mobility vary by social origins, students whose parents have higher levels of education will have stronger incentives to complete more advanced levels of schooling, while leaving the educational system earlier will be more acceptable to lower-class students. This hypothesis highlights that parents provide an important referent for comparison when children are making educational decisions, and it suggests that individuals are driven by the comparison with their parents as much as, or more than, by the comparison with their peers in the same cohort.

As shown by Mare and Chang ( 2006 ) in a comparative study of Taiwan and the United States, whether parents make a particular educational transition is a critical determinant of whether their offspring make that transition. The effect of parents’ educational transitions varies, however, across context. In the United States, this effect is independent of the sex of the parent and offspring. In Taiwan, in contrast, the effect of parents’ educational transitions is mostly confined to fathers and goes mostly to sons. If Taiwan is representative of developing countries characterized by deeper levels of gender inequality, the gender heterogeneity of this finding suggests that as education expands rapidly in developing countries, and thus children acquire much higher levels of schooling than their parents, the stronger pattering of individual attainment based on parents’ attainment among sons than daughters may serve as a barrier for sons, and provide a stronger avenue of mobility for daughters.

7.3.3 Intergenerational persistence in the context of educational expansion

The substantial educational expansion experienced over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in most countries around the world was expected to reduce the association between parents’ and children’s schooling, equalizing educational opportunity. Furthermore, many countries implemented reforms explicitly intended to equalize access and completion, such as constructing schools, reducing fees, and extending the number of years of compulsory education.

The fact that these expectations did not materialize (see e.g. Shavit and Blossfeld 1993 ) led scholars to attempt to understand the mechanisms of intergenerational persistence in the context of rapid expansion. The maximally maintained inequality (MMI) approach (Raftery and Hout 1993 ) was formulated as an explicit attempt to answer a question posed by findings in several industrialized countries: why is it that educational expansion and egalitarian reforms have not reduced intergenerational educational persistence more?

MMI asserts that an expansion in the educational system that does not specifically target the less advantaged classes provides new opportunities for all children. On average, children of advantaged classes have more economic and cultural resources, perform better in school, have higher aspirations, and are more acquainted with the educational system; in short, they are ‘better prepared than are others to take advantage of new educational opportunities’ (Ayalon and Shavit 2004 : 106). Therefore, only when the advantaged classes have reached saturation at a particular level of education—i.e. transition rates at or close to 100 per cent—will other sectors of society benefit from educational expansion. Only in these cases will educational expansion contribute to the reduction of socioeconomic inequality in educational opportunity (Raftery and Hout 1993 ).

According to MMI, a decline in inequality can be reversed. If, for example, an educational reform pushes expansion at the secondary level, but this expansion is not coupled with a growth of similar magnitude at the college level, the increasing number of secondary-school graduates will cause a bottleneck, leading to competition for scarce college places. The advantaged classes will have the upper hand in that competition, which may lead to growing inequality at the college level. Evidence suggesting this process of inequality reduction reversal was found for the Russian case during the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods (Gerber 2007 ; Gerber and Hout 1995 ).

Policy reforms intended to provide educational opportunities can also have unintended consequences, resulting in declines in mobility. In the case of China, for example, an educational reform in 1986 established nine years of compulsory education in an attempt to raise the educational levels of the most disadvantaged children. However, fiscal decentralization tightened the link between local economic resources and educational access at the local level. To compensate for budget restrictions, local governments in poor areas passed costs on to families in the form of increased tuition fees. In the context of the economic growth fostered by the economic reform of 1978, parents with higher levels of education experienced an increase in the economic returns to their schooling, and were able to increase their investment in their children’s education, exacerbating the influence of parents’ schooling on children’s educational attainment (Emran and Sun 2015 ).

The MMI approach is complemented by the effectively maintained inequality (EMI) perspective (for the original formulation, see Lucas 2001; see also Ayalon and Shavit 2004 ; Breen and Jonsson 2000 ). The EMI approach criticizes the MMI perspective for ignoring the simple fact that educational systems are not one-dimensional. Rather, they include several branches at each particular level—for instance, academic and vocational education, or college preparatory and noncollege preparatory tracks. EMI argues that when saturation is reached at a particular level, and inequality in attainment declines, vertical inequality may be replaced by horizontal inequality, i.e. socioeconomically advantaged families will be able to obtain specific educational credentials within a particular level of schooling that provide them with enhanced opportunities for further attainment.

The EMI approach emphasizes the institutional organization of different educational systems and the extent to which it provides opportunities for the persistence of educational attainment. It focuses on tracking, a relevant dimension of inequality in the advanced industrial world. In addition to tracking, sources of differentiation within a particular educational level prevalent in the developing world include the distinction between private and public schools. We discuss horizontal inequality as a potential source of intergenerational mobility in Section 7.6 .

Finally, a recent line of research extends the understanding of mobility from two-generation parent–child dyads to a multigenerational population-level analysis, and shows the value of incorporating demographic factors such as marriage and fertility into the understanding of persistence across generations. In a seminal paper, Mare and Maralani ( 2006 ) showed that the beneficial population-level influence of women’s schooling on the educational attainment of the next generation was partially offset by the fact that more highly educated women bore fewer children (and so were under-represented in the offspring’s generation), and was enhanced by the more favourable marriage partners of educated women.

7.4 Intergenerational educational mobility in developing countries: empirical findings

International comparative studies of intergenerational educational mobility consistently indicate that developing countries feature less mobility than their advanced industrial peers, and that the gap has persisted or even increased over time. The seminal study by Hertz et al. ( 2008 ) pooled survey data for individuals aged 20 to 69 across 42 countries between 1994 and 2004. They measured the association between parents’ education, measured as the average years of schooling of the father and mother, and adult children’s completed schooling, using regression and correlation coefficients, which provide comparable and straightforward measures of mobility.

Hertz et al.’s ( 2008 ) findings showed that Latin America and Africa were the least mobile regions of the world. The unweighted average of the IER coefficient reached 0.79 in Latin America and 0.80 in Africa. 3 Selected developing countries in Asia featured an average regression coefficient of 0.69. At the other extreme, Nordic countries exhibited the highest levels of mobility with a regression coefficient of 0.34, and the average across Western and Northern European countries and the United States was 0.54.

In terms of change over time, the global average trend suggested a substantial increase in mobility across cohorts. The regression coefficient dropped from more than 0.7 among those born in 1930 to less than 0.6 among those born in 1980. In contrast, the correlation coefficient remained constant at approximately 0.4 over this period. As explained in Section 7.2 , the lower value of the IEC compared with the IER indicates that the variance of parents’ schooling was lower than the variance of children’s schooling over the entire period. Furthermore, the ratio of the variances increased as education expanded, compensating for the decline in the IER. In substantive terms, Hertz et al.’s ( 2008 ) findings suggest that the increase in mobility across cohorts was entirely due to the changing variance of the schooling distribution of parents and children over time, rather than to a change in the net intergenerational educational association.

Hertz et al.’s ( 2008 ) analysis has recently been updated and expanded in the World Bank ( 2018 ) volume Fair Progress . This volume offers an impressively comprehensive evaluation of educational mobility across cohorts born between the 1940s and the 1980s across 148 economies that comprise 96 per cent of the world’s population. The authors consider relative and absolute mobility. They measure intergenerational educational association by means of the IER and IEC, and operationalize parental education as the maximum level of education attained by the parents.

The authors examine educational mobility separately for developing and high-income regions. The developing world includes most nations in East Asia and the Pacific, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, MENA, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. High-income economies include countries in Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. They also include some countries in East Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea), Eastern Europe (Latvia, Slovenia), and Latin America (Chile, Uruguay). If the country is coded as high-income, it is not included in its region.

Overall, the analysis indicates sharp differences in mobility levels and trends between developing and wealthy countries. In terms of absolute mobility, the authors find an increase in the proportion of children with more education than their parents in the developing world, from 40 per cent among those born in the 1950s to 50 per cent in the 1960s birth cohort, but stagnation thereafter. For high-income countries, absolute upward mobility actually declines, from a peak of 65 per cent of children having more education than their parents among those born in the 1950s to about 60 per cent among the 1980s birth cohort. While upward mobility is still much higher in high-income countries, these trends emphasize convergence driven by a ceiling on the expansion of educational attainment in wealthy nations (Figure 7.1 , left-hand panel).

Change in relative and absolute mobility of 1950–80 cohorts, across regions

Note : Relative mobility measured by IER. Higher values indicate less mobility. Absolute mobility measured by the proportion of adults who have higher levels of educational attainment than their parents. Regional averages are not weighted by population and exclude high-income economies (if any). The figure does not include economies for which estimates are available only for the 1980s cohort.

In terms of relative mobility, a decline in the IER is observed, signalling increased mobility in both high-income countries and the developing world. The IER dropped slightly from 0.48 to 0.45 between the 1950s and the 1980s cohorts in the developing world—most impressively in Latin America and MENA. In high-income economies, the decline in the IER was larger, from 0.37 to 0.32, resulting in a growing gap in relative mobility between developing and wealthy countries. When the IEC coefficient is used as an alternative measure of relative mobility, the authors find a significant drop in high-income countries, but persistence or even increase in the intergenerational association in the developing world (see World Bank 2018 : Figure B3.1.1).

Together, these findings yield several important conclusions. First, absolute upward mobility is converging between developing and wealthy countries, driven by the still massive educational expansion in the developing world. Second, there is a growing gap in relative educational mobility between wealthy and developing countries, regardless of whether the IER or the IEC is used. Third, the increase in relative mobility in the developing world—particularly impressive in Latin America and MENA, the regions that used to be the least mobile in the past—is largely driven by changes in the dispersion of schooling of parents and children across cohorts, rather than by the net intergenerational association. Fourth, among younger cohorts born in the 1980s, mobility is lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the regions that also have the lowest levels of educational attainment in the world. A combination of low average educational attainment and limited mobility is a worrying trend for these regions.

7.4.1 Educational mobility across regions of the world

The literature on educational mobility in specific developing countries or regions is a valuable extension of cross-national comparisons, which helps us to understand the relevance of economic and institutional contextual factors for educational opportunity. Unfortunately, this literature is relatively limited and restricted to specific countries.

Latin America

The longest tradition in the study of educational mobility can probably be found in Latin America. A landmark study by Behrman et al. ( 2001 ) examined intergenerational educational mobility in four countries (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) using the intergenerational regression coefficient. They found mobility to be much more limited in Latin America than in the United States using both metrics. The association of years of schooling between parents and adult children was approximately 0.5 in Mexico and Peru, and approximately 0.7 in Brazil and Colombia, compared with 0.35 in the United States. At the same time, the IER declined for cohorts born between the 1940s and the 1970s.

Sibling correlations of years of schooling also show very limited mobility in Latin America. Using the United States as a benchmark, Dahan and Gaviria ( 2001 ) examined the correlation among siblings in terms of their probability of being above the average educational attainment for their age. They found correlations ranging from 0.34 in Costa Rica to 0.59 in El Salvador, much higher than the correlation of 0.21 found in the United States. Behrman et al. ( 2001 ) closely replicated these findings. These studies confirm that Latin American nations used to feature very low levels of mobility, apparently even lower than countries with similar levels of development.

More recently, Daude and Robano ( 2015 ) and Neidhofer et al. ( 2018 ) have extended the comparative analysis of intergenerational educational association to virtually all Latin American countries, and Leone ( 2017 ) has offered a detailed analysis of the Brazilian case. The findings from these studies about trends over time are consistent with the findings of Hertz et al. ( 2008 ) and the World Bank ( 2018 ): the intergenerational association measured by the regression coefficient has declined across cohorts in Latin America, but the intergenerational correlation has remained constant or declined minimally.

A small literature has examined educational mobility in India and Pakistan using representative samples of adult children and retrospective information about parents. For India, Emran and Shilpi ( 2015 ) and Azam and Bhatt ( 2015 ) have found a substantial increase in educational mobility across cohorts born between the 1940s and 1980s based on the IER, but little change using sibling correlations or the IEC. Both the IEC and sibling educational correlations show a persistently low level of mobility between 1991 and 2006, even lower than in Latin America.

Cheema and Naseer ( 2013 ) find that while Pakistan has benefited from substantial educational expansion and the growing availability of schools in the last decades, the most disadvantaged households in rural regions have experienced very limited upward mobility. This finding offers an important warning about the limits of policies that alter the supply of education without changes in its demand by disadvantaged populations.

There is also a larger literature based on samples of parents and children residing in the same household in India and other South Asian countries (Hnatkovska et al. 2013 ; Jalan and Murgai 2015 ; Maitra and Sharma 2010 ; Sinha 2018 ), samples affected by other sources of selectivity such as excluding young people who are in school or children younger than a certain age (Choudhary and Singh 2017 ; Ranasinghe and Hartog 1997 ), or samples with insufficient information to assess their representativity and quality (Tiwari et al. 2016 ). Two common themes emerge from this literature. First, in the case of India, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes experience less educational mobility than the rest of the population, although the gap has closed over time. Second, in several South Asian countries including India, Pakistan, and Nepal, occupational mobility appears to be more limited than educational mobility, and the gains in upward educational mobility experienced by disadvantaged groups have not translated into occupational mobility gains. These findings suggest that growing educational opportunity is not sufficient to guarantee occupational equalization. Third, at least one study in Sri Lanka indicates that children of more affluent families seem to derive more benefits from the free education policy than children of disadvantaged groups (Ranasinghe and Hartog 1997 ), a finding consistent with the MMI approach reviewed in Section 7.3 . This finding casts doubt on the effectiveness of the free education policy as a sufficient strategy to promote social mobility. All these results, however, should be taken as suggestive, given the potential for bias emerging from the use of co-resident parents and children.

Several studies examine trends in intergenerational educational mobility in China and find signs of declining mobility over time. Fan et al. ( 2015 ) find declining mobility between urban cohorts born before and after 1970, particularly among women. Using a census of co-resident parents and children in urban China, Magnani and Zhu ( 2015 ) also find a decline in mobility for both sons and daughters between 1990 and 2000. Furthermore, Li and Zhong ( 2017 ) find that, in the context of rapid educational expansion, the association between parents’ cadre membership and children’s educational attainment has declined, but the association between parents’ and children’s education has increased over time. The authors speculate that this decline in mobility might be due to the fact that since the beginning of economic reforms in 1978, cadre selection has relied increasingly heavily on educational attainment.

The finding of declining educational mobility in China in a context of economic development and market reform is not unquestioned, however. Chen et al. ( 2015 ) find a U-shaped trend in intergenerational educational persistence among cohorts born between 1930 and 1985 in urban China. The persistence falls among cohorts educated after the Communist revolution of 1949, but rises again among cohorts educated during the reform era in the 1970s. In addition, Emran and Sun ( 2015 ) find that educational mobility has increased for women but decreased among men (more on this gender disparity later). In contrast to South Asia, limited educational mobility has been accompanied by massive upward occupational mobility, suggesting that industrialization and market reform have opened up occupational opportunities beyond the influence of educational expansion. Further research evaluating differences across data sources and statistical techniques might help us to find the sources of the discrepancies across studies.

Another important topic in the context of China is differences in mobility across the urban–rural divide. Golley and Kong ( 2013 ) find a wide gap in mobility between urban and rural populations, with rural children more likely to experience downward educational mobility than their urban peers. Using a sample of co-resident parents and children, Guo et al. ( 2019 ) find different effects of educational expansion policies in rural and urban populations. The compulsory education law of 1986 and the college expansion policy of 1999 promoted upward mobility in urban areas, but did not favour mobility in rural areas. This finding again highlights demand-side barriers to educational mobility among rural households.

Sub-Saharan Africa

A recent study evaluates trends in educational mobility over five decades in nine sub-Saharan African countries (Azomahou and Yitbarek 2016 ). The authors examine levels, trends, and patterns of intergenerational persistence of educational attainment among cohorts born from the 1930s to the 1980s. Consistent with cross-national comparisons around the globe (Hertz et al. 2008 ; World Bank 2018 ), they find an increase in mobility in all the countries examined using the IER (of a log-transformed version of years of schooling) as their measure of mobility, particularly after the 1960s, which coincides with drastic changes in educational systems and a large investment in human capital accumulation in the region following independence. Nevertheless, the education of parents remains a strong determinant of educational outcomes among children in all the countries. However, the IEC suggests stability over time, again supporting the claim that growing mobility is predicated on a change in the dispersion of schooling across generations, rather than changes in the net intergenerational association.

As in the South Asian region, a worrying finding in sub-Saharan countries is that the increase in absolute upward educational mobility driven by educational expansion has not resulted in a commensurable increase in occupational mobility (for an analysis of Kenya and Tanzania, see Knight and Sabot 1986 ; for a study of Ethiopia, see Haile 2018 ). Furthermore, Knight and Sabot ( 1986 ) find that in Kenya, the substantial expansion of primary schooling has resulted in a stronger association between social background and secondary-school students’ educational performance and school quality, a finding consistent with the MMI and EMI hypotheses outlined in Section 7.3 .

A small literature exists on the South African case which highlights the sharp racial differences in mobility, particularly between Blacks and Whites. Research shows that educational mobility is lower among blacks than whites, and particularly low among black boys who are poor (Nimubona and Vencatachellum 2007 ). Using sibling correlations in timely educational progress, Louw et al. ( 2007 ) find an increase in educational mobility in South Africa between 1970 and 2001 among both blacks and whites. The gaps in the quantity and quality of education across races remain very large, however. The mobility deficit of the black South African population has also been found for earnings mobility (Piraino 2015 ), contributing to the wide economic disparities between racial groups.

7.4.2 Gender and educational mobility

The conventional wisdom about gender differences in education states that the gender gap in favour of males is still large in the developing world. However, trends from the 1970s and the 2000s show enormous change, with women’s educational attainment reaching parity or even surpassing men’s in many developing countries (Grant and Behrman 2010 ; Hill and King 1993 ). As enrolment levels within countries have increased, the gender gap has consistently closed (Wils and Goujon 1998 ). In the early twenty-first century, girls have caught up with or exceeded boys in terms of primary educational attainment in the vast majority of developing countries, although gaps favouring boys still persist at the post-secondary levels in many poor nations (Assaad et al. 2019 ; Azomahou and Yitbarek 2016 ; Jayachandran 2015 ).

The gaps in educational attainment between boys and girls have been attributed, at least partially, to a marked parental preference for sons over daughters in many nations. Researchers have documented gender-unequal intrahousehold allocations of resources critical for educational attainment, such as nutrients, in contexts such as India and China (Song and Burgard 2008 ; Thomas 1996 ). It appears that girls living in rural areas are particularly handicapped (Lillard and Willis 2006 ). These patterns are not universal across the developing world, however: in some contexts, including very traditional and low-income societies, rough equality in investments between sons and daughters appears to be the norm (Kevane and Levine 2003 ; Mulder et al. 2019 ).

A handful of studies examine intergenerational educational mobility by gender in developing countries. Several of them report a stronger intergenerational educational association among women than men (for India, see Emran and Shilpi 2015 ; for China, see Emran and Sun 2015 ; for nine sub-Saharan African countries, see Azomahou and Yitbarek 2016 ; for South Africa, see Thomas 1996 ). Some of these studies, however, have found substantial change over time towards convergence across genders. For example, Emran and Shilpi ( 2015 ) find an increase in mobility using the intergenerational correlation and sibling models among daughters but not sons between the early 1990s and 2006. In China, the intergenerational educational association remained stable among daughters but increased among sons between 1988 and 2002, likely driven by growing direct costs and opportunity costs of schooling in the context of growing economic opportunities (Emran and Sun 2015 ). This observed convergence in the level of intergenerational educational association across genders suggests an equalization of parental investments in these two national contexts.

Researchers have found greater mobility among daughters than sons in other developing countries. Such findings characterize rural China (Emran and Sun 2015 ), Brazil (Leone 2017 ), and the Philippines (Dacuycuy and Dacuycuy 2019 ). The reasons for the mobility differences between men and women vary across national contexts. In the case of Brazil, Leone ( 2017 ) found that the higher mobility of daughters than sons was driven by their higher probability of attaining post-secondary education, regardless of social origins. In the Philippines, Dacuycuy and Dacuycuy ( 2019 ) found that sons’ mobility deficit could be accounted for by the stronger influence of low-educated/nonworking mothers on the school progression of sons than daughters. More research is certainly needed to advance a systematic understanding of gender differences in mobility across different national contexts.

Two caveats are relevant when considering uneven parental investments in resources critical to schooling, or schooling itself, between sons and daughters. First, the unequal allocation of household resources in favour of sons may be changing rapidly, driven by growing returns to schooling among women. For example, Rosenzweig and Zhang ( 2013 ) find that returns to schooling in the urban labour market are higher among women than men in China, and that they are rising along with rising levels of schooling. The authors suggest that these trends are driven by a comparative advantage of women in ‘skill’ versus ‘brawn’ occupations in the context of substantial economic development and structural change since the 1980s. Second, when one is examining differences in parental investments and transfers by gender, it is important to consider the entire family portfolio. For example, a study in rural Philippines found that daughters received lower parental investments in terms of education and land transfers than sons; however, they were compensated with other non-land assets (Quisumbing 1994 ).

7.4.3 Macro-level factors and educational mobility

A small literature examines the association between the national economic and institutional context and educational mobility by relying on cross-country (and to a lesser extent, over time) comparisons in the developing world. To date, this literature has mostly focused on Latin American and African countries. The existing studies find a positive association between educational mobility and several macro-level factors including the mean level of schooling in the country, the level of income inequality, economic development, and the strength of financial markets (Behrman et al. 1999 ; Dahan and Gaviria 2001 ; Neidhofer et al. 2018 ).

In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, a study by Alesina et al. ( 2019 ) considering 26 African countries finds that colonial investments in the transport network and missionary activity are associated with upward mobility. Mobility is also higher in areas with more vibrant economic development, rugged areas without malaria, and regions that were more economically developed at independence. Given that many of these factors characterized the region decades or centuries ago, the policy implications are not immediately obvious.

Interestingly, the association between public expenditures in education and educational mobility is very weak, at least in the Latin American and African cases (Behrman et al. 1999 ; Dahan and Gaviria 2001 ; Knight and Sabot 1986 ; Neidhofer et al. 2018 ). This contrasts with comparisons across industrialized countries, which show that educational spending is positively related to mobility (Blanden 2013 ). A likely explanation for this weak association is that governments in Latin America and Africa allocate a large portion of their educational budgets to higher education. Spending on higher education, particularly on undergraduate training, tends to benefit more affluent families whose children remain in school longer, so it provides a hefty subsidy to the upper class (Birdsall 1996 ). In fact, when public spending on different educational levels has been considered, researchers have found that primary and secondary spending is indeed positively associated with mobility, but spending on tertiary education is negatively associated with mobility (Neidhofer et al. 2018 ).

7.4.4 Economic crises and educational mobility

Developing countries suffer deeper and more frequent economic downturns than wealthy ones, making the question about the effect of the economic cycle on educational mobility important. Much research examines the effect of economic crises on educational attainment (for an excellent summary, see Ferreira and Schady 2009 ). However, these studies tend to focus on the effect of crises on the overall level of educational attainment, rather than on the allocation of education by parental resources (e.g. McKenzie 2003 ; Skoufias and Parker 2006 ).

The few studies that examine the effect of the macroeconomic context on educational persistence in developing countries consistently find a negative effect of economic crises on mobility. Economic decline during the 1980s resulted in decreased mobility in Mexico (Binder and Woodruff 2002 ) and across four Latin American countries (Torche 2010 ). By the same token, the economic crisis that started in the late 1990s in Argentina appears to have resulted in lower educational mobility (Rucci 2004 ). Examining the consequences of the 1998 crisis in Indonesia, Thomas et al. ( 2004 ) found that it resulted in lower investments in children’s education, most dramatically among the poorest households. Conversely, post-crisis economic growth resulted in increased mobility in Latin America (Marteleto et al. 2012 ). The decline in mobility resulting from economic recession is particularly strong at the secondary and post-secondary levels, which are noncompulsory in many developing countries.

This decline in educational mobility associated with economic crisis is driven not only by tighter financial constraints among poorer households, but also by increased educational attainment among advantaged families. It appears that in the developing world, economic crises produce different effects on educational attainment for poor and wealthy households. A positive substitution effect results in educational gains among the wealthy, whereas a negative income effect results in losses among the poor (Ferreira and Schady 2009 ). The end result is a stronger influence of social origins on educational attainment among the cohorts affected by economic contraction.

7.5 The role of education in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic advantage

So far, this review has focused on educational mobility. Education is also important as a mediating factor in the process of economic mobility. There is a long research tradition in sociology that examines the role that education plays in the process of socioeconomic mobility.

In the 1960s, the status attainment tradition showed that education was both the main mechanism for intergenerational persistence and the main vehicle for mobility (Blau and Duncan 1967 ; Hout and DiPrete 2006 ). This dual role, which puzzled researchers when it was first documented, is easy to explain. Education is a central vehicle for reproduction because advantaged parents are able to afford more schooling for their children, which in turn pays off in the labour market and other markets. Education is also the main vehicle for mobility because factors other than parental advantage account for most of the variance in educational attainment, thus weakening the link between socioeconomic origins and destinations.

As proposed in the influential book The American Occupational Structure (Blau and Duncan 1967 ), the total socioeconomic association between parents and adult children can be decomposed into the pathway mediated by educational attainment and a direct pathway that is net of education. The education pathway includes the association between parents’ socioeconomic standing and individual educational attainment (‘inequality of educational opportunity’), and the association between educational attainment and adult children’s socioeconomic position (‘returns to education’). These pathways are indicated by arrows A and B respectively in Figure 7.2 .

The role of education in the socio-economic mobility process

Note : SES: socio-economic status.

The direct pathway that is net of education captures multiple factors, such as the direct inheritance of property, variations in the probability of marrying and assortative mating patterns by social origins, the use of family-based social networks or cultural capital for occupational placing, and the transmission of personality traits, among many others. It is indicated by arrow C in Figure 7.2 .

A particularly important concern is the role that educational attainment plays in the intergenerational stratification process in the developing world. Given the high earnings returns to schooling that characterize developing countries (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2018 ), education is likely to play a pivotal role in intergenerational reproduction. So far, the evidence is scarce, but existing studies suggest variation across regions. In Latin America, the mediating role of education appears to be strong, perhaps even stronger than in the advanced industrial world (Torche 2014 ). In contrast, Assaad and Saleh ( 2018 ) and Binzel and Carvalho ( 2017 ) show that growing educational mobility across cohorts in Jordan and Egypt respectively has not resulted in more income mobility, suggesting that the educational pathway plays a limited role in economic mobility, and offering a word of caution about the strategy of focusing on equalizing educational attainment to improve socioeconomic mobility.

The evidence also suggests that the role of education in the economic mobility process may vary by gender. Gender variation could emerge from parents investing more in the schooling of their sons than of their daughters (Behrman 1988 ; Song and Burgard 2008 ), from different returns to schooling for men and women (DiPrete and Buchmann 2006 ; Dougherty 2005 ; Montenegro and Patrinos 2014 ), or from gender variation in the portion of the intergenerational economic association that is not mediated by education.

To date, evidence of gender differences in the role of education for economic mobility is very limited in the developing world. A study in rural Philippines found that the intergenerational income association was entirely accounted for by parental investments in capital—education, health, and landholdings—among sons. In contrast, a direct intergenerational income association was found among daughters, even after their educational attainment and other types of capital were accounted for, suggesting the use of social capital and the direct transfer of assets among women, probably related to finding a ‘good’ husband (Bevis and Barrett 2015 ). In the case of Mexico, the role of education in intergenerational economic persistence is similar for sons and daughters (Torche 2015 ). Both national cases diverge from high-income countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, where the mediating role of education and occupation appears to be more important for daughters than for sons (Blanden et al. 2014 ). The heterogeneity of findings suggests the need to consider other developing nations to understand patterns of gender variation.

Some analysts have claimed that a strong mediating role of education in the process of economic persistence is good news: the transmission of advantage net of education reflects processes that refer to pure ascription. However, the strong mediating role of education could create a situation of ‘inherited meritocracy’, legitimized and naturalized by educational attainment when in fact persistence emerges from the strong barriers that disadvantaged families in the developing world face to access quantity and quality in education (Torche 2014 ).

Sociologists have further explored the possibility that the direct intergenerational association that is unmediated by education varies by the level of education of the respondent. Empirical analysis has shown that the net intergenerational socioeconomic association is weaker among individuals who obtain college degrees than among those with lower levels of schooling. This finding has been obtained in the United States (Torche 2011 ), some European countries (Breen and Jonsson 2007 ; Falcon and Bataille 2018 ), and at least one developing country, namely Brazil (Torche and Ribeiro 2010 ). 4

This finding has been interpreted as indicating that higher educational levels are more meritocratic in the sense that college graduates are allocated to segments of the labour market in which meritocratic selection is more prevalent and origin characteristics count for less, insofar as higher qualifications are a powerful signal for employers, leaving little leeway for social network effects (Breen and Jonsson 2007 ). 5

Alternatively, the weaker intergenerational persistence among college graduates could be due to unobserved selectivity among those who make it into higher education—think in particular of the positive selectivity of students from disadvantaged origins who are able to persist in the educational system in spite of obstacles (Karlson 2019 ; Zhou 2019 ). This question has important implications. If the markets faced by college graduates are indeed more meritocratic, expanding college access and graduation will, ceteris paribus , increase mobility. An indication of this trend has been found in the United States (Pfeffer and Hertel 2015 ) and European countries (Breen 2010 ). If, in contrast, the heightened mobility of college graduates is due to unobserved selectivity, expanding college will most likely reduce selectivity and thus not result in increased mobility. With the exception of Brazil, we do not have empirical information on the intergenerational economic association across levels of schooling in the developing world, but this is a question worth examining.

7.6 Policy implications

We have shown that educational expansion has boosted absolute intergenerational educational mobility across the developing world, but that relative mobility remains low in comparative perspective, signalling limited opportunity to overcome disadvantaged educational origins. What could decision makers do if the goal is to promote educational opportunity? Expanding the educational system is relevant, but it is not enough. In fact, much research suggests that wealthier families are better equipped to take advantage of new educational opportunities, unless policies strictly regulate access. Furthermore, demand barriers to educational attainment among the poor—deriving for example from the opportunity cost of schooling or beliefs about the payoff of the educational system—could be equally or more important than availability of affordable schools, and would need to be specifically addressed. These barriers appear to be strong among specific groups such as rural and isolated populations, which call for targeted interventions.

The literature also highlights discrepancies between educational mobility and occupational/economic opportunity. In some settings, such as China, fast economic expansion has increased the opportunity cost of education among disadvantaged groups with newly found job prospects, potentially depressing educational mobility. In other contexts, such as some MENA countries, youths with much more education than their parents cannot find jobs due to economic stagnation. These discrepancies highlight that educational opportunity should not be a goal separated from economic prosperity, and that promoting educational mobility might require targeted strategies to assist disadvantaged youths.

Finally, mobility is a ‘backward looking’ measure in the sense that it provides information about individuals who have experienced their educational career in the past (sometimes decades ago), under economic and policy circumstances that differ from current ones. Complementing standard mobility measures with the assessment of educational opportunity among school-age children and with evaluation of specific polices is critical to properly inform decision making.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Jere Behrman, Vegard Iversen, Sarah Nolan, and participants in the UNU-WIDER conference ‘Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods and Determinants’ for their excellent comments and suggestions. She also thanks Martin Ordonez for superb research assistantship.

Alesina, A. , S. Hohmann , S. Michalopoulos , and E. Papaioannou ( 2019 ). ‘ Intergenerational Mobility in Africa ’. Working Paper 25534. Cambridge, MA: NBER.

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Furthermore, measures that link ordered ranks of educational attainment in both generations may provide an even more robust measure than the IER or IEC when data are incomplete (Emran and Shilpi 2017 ).

Hertz et al. ( 2008 ) elaborated on this finding, showing empirically that at least between the 1930s and the 1980s, the dispersion of parents’ schooling increased monotonically across cohorts, while the dispersion of adult children’s schooling followed an inverted-U pattern: increase and then decrease. As a result, the ratio of these measures of dispersion increased among more recent cohorts, resulting in a constant correlation even as the regression coefficient was declining.

But note that only four African countries (or regions within countries) were included. Given this very small sample size, the findings for Africa were only suggestive.

Both Torche ( 2011 ) and Falcon and Bataille ( 2018 ) find a re-emergence of the intergenerational association among individuals who attain graduate degrees, however.

The strong intergenerational economic association among graduate degree holders in some contexts questions this interpretation, however.

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Why university is an engine of social mobility for the world.

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Giorgio Armani, whose net worth Forbes estimates at around $12.4B, began his career as a buyer and ... [+] window dresser for a Milan department store (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images)

The legend of Italian fashion, Giorgio Armani was photographed earlier this year fixing a window display in his flagship store in Milan. Some things never change.

The 89-year-old, whose net worth Forbes estimates at around $12.4B, began his career as a buyer and window dresser for Milan department store La Rinascente. Describing the city where he built his fashion empire he says, ‘Milan is a true metropolis: strong and fearless but welcoming too. Little by little, I came to realise that I could become someone here.’

People go to a city to make something of themselves. To hustle, to study, to build, to succeed. For many, education is the first step in that journey.

In the case of Milan, a city of nearly three and a half million people, it’s a hotspot for culture, a centre of industry, a hub for trade, a fashion powerhouse, and very much a university city. In the early 20 th century Milan had only two universities; today it boasts more than a dozen.

‘Milan is at the heart of Europe, and offers a high quality of life,’ says Professor Francesco Billari, Rector of Bocconi University, accounting for the popularity of the centres of study within what he describes as ‘a truly global city’.

Among those institutions is the top ranked Italian academy of fine arts, the Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti (NABA), which teaches everything from painting to creative writing, as well as the Milan-based Istituto Marangoni, one of the most prestigious fashion schools in the world, founded back in 1935. And the city’s oldest university, Politecnico di Milano, boats a long list of notable alumni including arhictect, Renzo Piano and Stefano Pessina, former CEO of Walgreens Boots.

Milan has drawn students, poets, movie stars, and dreamers, all seeking a piece of the Bel paese , the fair land, of Italy. Given the high quality of life, it is no wonder so many choose it as their place of study.

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A springboard for social mobility

Cities and universities offer people chances to change their circumstances, to rise socially and economically. Billari feels this deeply – the sense that a university education can change a life. He was a first-generation student when he came to Bocconi for his undergraduate degree. Now, back at Bocconi University, he feels proud of working at an institution which helped not only him but continues to help others improve their lives.

"For over 120 years, Bocconi has been a strong social innovator, an engine of social mobility within ... [+] Italy" - Francesco Billari, Rector of Bocconi University

‘For over 120 years, Bocconi has been a strong social innovator, an engine of social mobility within Italy,’ Billari says, and intergenerational social mobility is a strong indicator of a fair society.

‘Bocconi is a nonprofit institution,’ Billari says, ‘so we have to make sure the university is economically sustainable, but we equally have to make sure to generate resources to be able to recruit students from all backgrounds.’ Bocconi puts much of its resources toward scholarships for social mobility. Already, one in three students benefit from partial or total remission of tuition and fees.

‘Now, as an international university, with students from all over the world, we are becoming an engine of social mobility for the whole world,’ Billari continues. Increasingly, Bocconi is offering merit-based scholarships for international students. ‘And on top of these scholarships, there are programs for refugees,’ Billari says. At Bocconi, the UNICORE project creates opportunities for African refugees to continue their higher education in Italy by taking a 2-year MSc program with full support.

Billari is not alone in believing that learning provides opportunities. Nelson Mandela once said that ‘Education in the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ Today, intergenerational social mobility in Italy is up, and is now higher than in the USA .

‘We aim to tell our students that the sky is the limit in terms of social mobility’, Billari insists, ‘that there is no limit to what they can achieve, and we give them the tools to shape the world in a responsible manner.’

Changing the world through research

A university can change the world through its research, Billari also emphasises. In his convincing definition, ‘A successful academic institution has to have an aspiration to change the world and to make the world a better place.’ Billari thinks deeply about what a meaningful modern university is, and what an academic can do to create meaningful change and work today. ‘Research,’ he emphasises, ‘is a key way in which to change the world.’

An education at Bocconi is frequently tied to data, data collected from the world. In the graduate school, lessons from STEM are incorporated into all courses, and there is a sprinkling of science into every course. ‘Bocconi’s motto is that knowledge that matters, because we are always tied to the real world,’ Billari says.

"Changing lives and changing the world, these are the important things for a good university." - ... [+] Francesco Billari, Rector of Bocconi University

As well as being Rector, Billari is Professor of Demography at Bocconi. His own research into demography affects his thinking, and his leadership of the university. Demography, Billari says, ‘has a natural lens towards the long term, to think about longer term perspectives.’ It also offers ‘a natural approach in which you try to make opportunities out of apparent contrasts. Italy has an ageing population. But if you look at the global perspective, the situation is different, and talent and need are exhibited everywhere. One of the challenges is to reconcile trends,’ Billari adds, ‘And this is something that we can apply to a university, which is rooted in a place but can also be a necessarily global player.’

A Global University

An emphasis on world-changing and connection is shown in Bocconi’s links to other universities, foundations, and companies, which number in the hundreds. This internationalism has been in Bocconi’s DNA for over fifty years, since the first exchange agreement in 1974. A thriving alumni community is present in most major global hubs, with 75 chapters around the world. Bocconi’s approach to the circulation of students and talent – in a very modern Milanese style – aims at a peaceful, cooperative, and prosperous world.

Billari finds this multicultural creativity enlivening, and interesting. The international presence makes him feel that there are moments every day when he senses that something special is occurring on campus. The great number of student groups and associations is a special point of pride. When he attends events with these associations and experiences the kind of inclusive debate that is fostered in such spaces, he leaves ‘glowing and refreshed.’

‘You know, it makes me feel alive,’ he says.

‘I want Bocconi to change lives like it changed my life,’ Billari continues. ‘I want the place to be an agent of social mobility. Changing lives and changing the world, these are the important things for a good university. I hope to shape this institution toward those aims for the period of in history in which I am Rector and linking that to other action that makes Bocconi even more future proofed. That is something I would love to leave as a legacy. It would be a great privilege.’

Giorgio Armani will turn 90 in July and continues to build his own legacy through dedication and attention to detail. “I don’t think I will ever stop working because dressing people is my life’s great passion.”

An inspiration for the generation of students who come to Milan to pursue their own dreams.

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Technical Officer (NCDs Health Service Delivery) - (2405155)

Objectives of the programme.

The Department of Healthier Populations and Noncommunicable Diseases (HPN) regionally leads a strategic, evidence-based, country-centred, coordinated action to improve NCD services to achieve SDG target 3.4.1 and contribute to SDG 3.8. The department contributes to provision of guidance and support for strengthened demand for and improving access to quality and affordable essential package of NCD services at primary health and all levels of care as part of integrated people-centred NCD services. Key elements include planning and advocacy, leveraging finance, improving access, quality and use of NCD medicines & products and building NCD workforce capacity to deliver the services. This will be undertaken through supporting focused-countries to implement evidence-based guidelines, tools and technical packages in the South-East Asia Region.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

Under the overall supervision and guidance of Director, Department of Healthier Population and Noncommunicable Diseases (HPN)and in collaboration with the Technical Officer and Regional Adviser (NCD), the incumbent is expected to:

Provide technical support to Member States implementing specific NCD projects (E.g.; Norway, Denmark and any other NCD projects) through WHO country offices in planning and implementing evidence-based and people-centred integrated NCD service delivery in primary health care.
Plan and manage regular coordination meetings between the project implementing teams and provide continuous feedback to the country teams and update the HPN department and WHO country offices on the matters relating to projects in countries.
Facilitate building capacity of relevant staff and programme implementers for NCD interventions
Closely monitor the progress of the project and liaise with country offices and ensure regular compilation of the implementation reports and share with WHO HQ and the donor.
Analyze information on NCD service performance measures and other relevant activities to assist the department in monitoring and ensuring coordination of different projects in focus countries.
Develop protocols to evaluate the project data and compile implementation reports, write case studies on progress of the Norway Government supported projects and submit to the department and relevant stakeholders on a regular basis and as needed.
Share the lessons of projects within the units and collaborate to integrate multiprong approaches to NCD capacity building and delivery of people-centred NCD services at the primary health care level.
Undertake other duties as required by the Supervisor, and the Director.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Essential : Degree in Health Sciences with a postgraduate degree in Public Health/preventive and social medicine from a recognized university. Desirable : A post graduate degree in any of the health system building blocks

Essential : At least 5 (Five) years of experience, in the field of public health, preferably in the area of NCDs, with responsibilities for planning, management; and use of advance skills on data analysis and research with some international exposure. Desirable : Experience in project management, research and evaluation in health systems specially in low- and middle-income settings, and teaching/training of health personnel / providers. Experience in UN and other international organisations

Technical and managerial competencies in public health for management of chronic NCDs.

Well-versed in community-based health initiatives.

Leadership skills and ability to establish harmonious relationships with government officials

WHO Competencies

Teamwork Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences Communication Producing results Ensuring the effective use of resources

Use of Language Skills

Essential : Expert knowledge of English. Desirable :

REMUNERATION

WHO salaries for staff in the Professional category are calculated in US dollars. The remuneration for the above position comprises an annual base salary starting at USD 64,121 (subject to mandatory deductions for pension contributions and health insurance, as applicable), a variable post adjustment, which reflects the cost of living in a particular duty station, and currently amounts to USD 2479 per month for the duty station indicated above. Other benefits include 30 days of annual leave, allowances for dependent family members, home leave, and an education grant for dependent children.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level
Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
A written test and/or an asynchronous video assessment may be used as a form of screening.
In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/ . Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
According to article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard will be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.
Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to WHO Staff Regulations, Staff Rules and Manual.
Staff members in other duty stations are encouraged to apply.
The WHO is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. The WHO recruits and employs staff regardless of disability status, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, race, marital status, religious, cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, or any other personal characteristics.
The WHO is committed to achieving gender parity and geographical diversity in its staff. Women, persons with disabilities, and nationals of unrepresented and underrepresented Member States ( https://www.who.int/careers/diversity-equity-and-inclusion ) are strongly encouraged to apply.
Persons with disabilities can request reasonable accommodations to enable participation in the recruitment process. Requests for reasonable accommodation should be sent through an email to [email protected]
An impeccable record for integrity and professional ethical standards is essential. WHO prides itself on a workforce that adheres to the highest ethical and professional standards and that is committed to put the WHO Values Charter into practice.
WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuse of authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report to WHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated history of SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with WHO and an underlying premise of the international civil service. Candidates appointed to an international post with WHO are subject to mobility and may be assigned to any activity or duty station of the Organization throughout the world.
WHO also offers wide range of benefits to staff, including parental leave and attractive flexible work arrangements to help promote a healthy work-life balance and to allow all staff members to express and develop their talents fully.
The statutory retirement age for staff appointments is 65 years. For external applicants, only those who are expected to complete the term of appointment will normally be considered.
Please note that WHO's contracts are conditional on members of the workforce confirming that they are vaccinated as required by WHO before undertaking a WHO assignment, except where a medical condition does not allow such vaccination, as certified by the WHO Staff Health and Wellbeing Services (SHW). The successful candidate will be asked to provide relevant evidence related to this condition. A copy of the updated vaccination card must be shared with WHO medical service in the medical clearance process. Please note that certain countries require proof of specific vaccinations for entry or exit. For example, official proof /certification of yellow fever vaccination is required to enter many countries. Country-specific vaccine recommendations can be found on the WHO international travel and Staff Health and Wellbeing website. For vaccination-related queries please directly contact SHW directly at [email protected] .
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Contract Duration (Years, Months, Days): 2 years

Closing Date: Jul 18, 2024

Organization: SE/HPN Healthier Populations & Noncommunicable Diseases

Schedule: Full-time

Link to apply:

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Vacancies (staff member access): https://careers.who.int/careersection/in/jobsearch.ftl
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COMMENTS

Full article: Education and social mobility: possibilities
Yet, if a social justice lens is engaged, it is harder to justify the broader structural disadvantages intact. Continuing a focus on elite education, the third article examines how Singaporean students, who are recipients of a prestigious academic scholarships to study at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, articulate and ...
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Guest Essay. School Is for Social Mobility ... Education is the solution to this lack of mobility. There are still many ways in which the current education system generates its own inequities, and ...
The Link Between Education and Social Upward Mobility: Some ...
Education is the cornerstone in the sustainability of any society and it has played a pivotal role in uplifting the socioeconomic standard of individuals across the globe (Brown et al. 2013; Arifin 2017).The primary aim of education is to sustain individuals and their social well-being (Turkkahraman 2012), but the inequalities that emerge between rural and urban areas have tainted the noble ...
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1. Family incomes have declined for a third of American children over the past few decades. 2. Countries with high income inequality have low social mobility. 3. Upward social mobility is limited ...
Education and Social Mobility: New Analytical Approaches
Introduction. Education is widely regarded as the key to individual economic and social mobility. However, studies of intergenerational income mobility and intergenerational social mobility have shown that although education mediates some of the relationship between origins and destinations, it does not mediate it entirely: even controlling for educational attainment, an association between ...
[PDF] Education and Social Mobility
THE JUXTAPOSITION Of education and social mobility is generally based on five propositions: (1) that society is stratified; (2) that the system of stratification permits mobility, or that it is essentially open; (3) that education plays an important role in mobility; (4) that education is an achieved status; and (5) that role performance is closely linked to education. Furthermore, society is ...
Reflections on education and social mobility
education and social mobility - a great social issue that is amenable to. 'arithmetic' analysis but is also liable to be inflamed by deeply moral and. political passions. Sociology, perhaps especially in this context, is threatened by ideological intrusion into its neutral scientific aspirations. Words such as.
Education and the social mobility conundrum: An examination of the
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission refers to the term 'social mobility' in the context of wider economic inequalities experienced by children and families. However, social mobility in education is '…often used to describe efforts to close achievement gaps between disadvantaged children and their more privileged peers ...
Education, opportunity and the prospects for social mobility
The 'deficit' does not narrowed by giving those from disadvantaged backgrounds access to 'more' education. The problem is not a working-class 'deficit' but middle-class access to capital (financial, cultural, and social), giving them an unfair advantage in education and the labour market (Bourdieu Citation 1984).
Education and Social Mobility: New Analytical Approaches
2004: p. 222) in social fluidity among British men when comparing surveys conducted in the last decades of the 20th century. Assessing the Role of Education in Social Mobility In the social mobility literature, researchers have em ployed various methods to try to ascertain the impact of education on social fluidity. These include, inter alia,
Education and Social Mobility
The study of education and social mobility has been a key area of sociological research since the 1950s. The importance of this research derives from the systematic analysis of functionalist theories of industrialism. Functionalist theories assume that the complementary demands of efficiency and justice result in more 'meritocratic' societies, characterized by high rates of social mobility.
The Benefits of Education and Social Mobility
Education serves as a catalyst for social mobility by equipping individuals with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities necessary to improve their socioeconomic status. One of the primary benefits of education in facilitating social mobility is its role in enhancing economic prospects. Individuals with higher levels of education tend to have ...
The Role of Education in Social Mobility: a Comparative Study of
The interplay of various factors shapes social mobility. Education plays a pivotal role, as it equips individuals with skills, knowledge, and opportunities that can propel them towards upward mobility. ... This study is based on secondary sources of data such as articles, books, journals, research papers, websites and other sources. THE ROLE OF ...
Social Mobility and Higher Education
There is an enduring connection between social origin, higher education, and destination. We concentrate here on post-WWII patterns, coinciding with the takeoff in higher education enrollments (Schofer and Meyer 2005).. The contemporary field of social mobility research comprises both intensive studies focusing on a single national case and extensive studies which involve numerous countries ...
Education and social mobility: possibilities, reproductive structures
Education and social mobility: possibilities, reproductive structures, discourse and materiality. Schools have long been identified by sociologists as core institutions within society, responsible for contributing to the national, public good; contribut-ing to the structural glue that holds together diverse national populations; developing the ...
Race, education and social mobility: We all need to dream the same
Within this special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory: Exploring the Unequal Space: Race, Social Mobility and Education; the authors represent a body of activists and thinkers - constituting and envisioning new waves of evocative contemporary thought which reflect a commitment towards realigning our efforts towards dismantling the ...
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Abstract. 1. Education and social mobility Phillip Brown, Diane Reay and Carol Vincent 2. Reflections on education and social mobility A.H. Halsey 3. Social mobility, a panacea for austere times ...
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Abstract. This chapter reviews the small but growing literature on intergenerational educational mobility in the developing world. Education is a critical determinant of economic wellbeing, and it predicts a range of nonpecuniary outcomes such as marriage, fertility, health, crime, and political attitudes.
PDF Social Mobility and Role of Education in Promoting Social Mobility
Education is a very potent means of encouraging social mobility the Indian society. It has multidirectional influence in promoting social mobility. Education plays such an important role in following ways. Education is the need of every person because on it depends proper development of man.
PDF Essays on Social Mobility
mobility by three key dimensions, and present new facts about income mobility in the UK. First, I examine income mobility by gender, and I find that it is similar for sons and daughters. There is assortative mating by income, which reinforces the dynamics of income persistence due to family background.
PDF Education and Social Mobility in India: A Sociological Inquiry
ISSN: 2455-670X. Volume 8, Issue 1, DIP: 18.02.17/20230801. DOI: 10.25215/2455/080117. www.ijsi.in | January - March, 2023. in India: A Sociological InquiryDr. Hetal H. Soni1*ABSTRACTThis sociological inquiry explores the intrica. e relationship between education and social mobility in India. In a country marked by its diversity and complex ...
Education and social mobility
The study of education and social mobility has been a key area of sociological research since the 1950s. The importance of this research derives from the systematic analysis of functionalist theori...
Why University Is An Engine Of Social Mobility For The World
A springboard for social mobility. Cities and universities offer people chances to change their circumstances, to rise socially and economically. Billari feels this deeply - the sense that a ...
Technical Officer (NCDs Health Service Delivery)
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMMEThe Department of Healthier Populations and Noncommunicable Diseases (HPN) regionally leads a strategic, evidence-based, country-centred, coordinated action to improve NCD services to achieve SDG target 3.4.1 and contribute to SDG 3.8. The department contributes to provision of guidance and support for strengthened demand for and improving access to quality and ...
Reflections on education and social mobility
This article is a brief personal reflection on the state of research into the relation between education and social mobility. Quantitative methods are both essential and advancing in this field. Sociologists seek scientific solutions but achieve ethical neutrality only with difficulty because all are tempted to bias from social and political ...