The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia

This paper provides an analysis of the rural-urban divide in intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia with two distinguishing features. First, the estimating equations are derived from theory incorporating rural-urban differences in retu...

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Main Authors: Ahsan, Md Nazmul, Emran, M. Shahe, Shilpi, Forhad
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/414131604430277237/The-Rural-Urban-Divide-and-Intergenerational-Educational-Mobility-in-a-Developing-Country-Theory-and-Evidence-from-Indonesia
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34731
id okr-10986-34731
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-347312022-09-20T00:11:15Z The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia Ahsan, Md Nazmul Emran, M. Shahe Shilpi, Forhad INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE URBANIZATION RETURNS TO EDUCATION COMPLEMENTARITY SCHOOL QUALITY ROLE MODEL This paper provides an analysis of the rural-urban divide in intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia with two distinguishing features. First, the estimating equations are derived from theory incorporating rural-urban differences in returns to education and school quality, and possible complementarity between parent’s education and financial investment. Second, the data are suitable for tackling the biases from sample truncation due to coresidency and omitted cognitive ability heterogeneity. The evidence rejects the workhorse linear intergenerational educational persistence equation in favor of a convex relation in rural and urban Indonesia. The rural-urban relative mobility curves cross, with the children of low educated fathers enjoying higher relative mobility in rural areas, while the pattern flips in favor of the urban children when the father has more than nine years of schooling. However, the rural children face lower absolute mobility across the whole distribution of father's schooling. Estimates from the investment equation suggest that, in urban areas, children~^!!^s peers are complementary to financial investment by parents, while the adult role models are substitutes. In contrast, separability holds in villages. Peers and role models are not responsible for the convexity in both rural and urban areas, suggesting more efficient investment by educated parents as a likely mechanism, as proposed by Becker et al. (2015, 2018). The theoretical relation between the intercepts of the mobility and investment equations helps in understand whether school quality is complementary to or a substitute for parental financial investment. This paper finds evidence of substitutability, implying that public investment to improve the quality of rural schools is desirable on both equity and efficiency grounds. 2020-11-05T15:39:01Z 2020-11-05T15:39:01Z 2020-11 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/414131604430277237/The-Rural-Urban-Divide-and-Intergenerational-Educational-Mobility-in-a-Developing-Country-Theory-and-Evidence-from-Indonesia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34731 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9464 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper East Asia and Pacific Indonesia
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY
RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE
URBANIZATION
RETURNS TO EDUCATION
COMPLEMENTARITY
SCHOOL QUALITY
ROLE MODEL
spellingShingle INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY
RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE
URBANIZATION
RETURNS TO EDUCATION
COMPLEMENTARITY
SCHOOL QUALITY
ROLE MODEL
Ahsan, Md Nazmul
Emran, M. Shahe
Shilpi, Forhad
The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
geographic_facet East Asia and Pacific
Indonesia
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9464
description This paper provides an analysis of the rural-urban divide in intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia with two distinguishing features. First, the estimating equations are derived from theory incorporating rural-urban differences in returns to education and school quality, and possible complementarity between parent’s education and financial investment. Second, the data are suitable for tackling the biases from sample truncation due to coresidency and omitted cognitive ability heterogeneity. The evidence rejects the workhorse linear intergenerational educational persistence equation in favor of a convex relation in rural and urban Indonesia. The rural-urban relative mobility curves cross, with the children of low educated fathers enjoying higher relative mobility in rural areas, while the pattern flips in favor of the urban children when the father has more than nine years of schooling. However, the rural children face lower absolute mobility across the whole distribution of father's schooling. Estimates from the investment equation suggest that, in urban areas, children~^!!^s peers are complementary to financial investment by parents, while the adult role models are substitutes. In contrast, separability holds in villages. Peers and role models are not responsible for the convexity in both rural and urban areas, suggesting more efficient investment by educated parents as a likely mechanism, as proposed by Becker et al. (2015, 2018). The theoretical relation between the intercepts of the mobility and investment equations helps in understand whether school quality is complementary to or a substitute for parental financial investment. This paper finds evidence of substitutability, implying that public investment to improve the quality of rural schools is desirable on both equity and efficiency grounds.
format Working Paper
author Ahsan, Md Nazmul
Emran, M. Shahe
Shilpi, Forhad
author_facet Ahsan, Md Nazmul
Emran, M. Shahe
Shilpi, Forhad
author_sort Ahsan, Md Nazmul
title The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
title_short The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
title_full The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
title_fullStr The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
title_full_unstemmed The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country : Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
title_sort rural-urban divide and intergenerational educational mobility in a developing country : theory and evidence from indonesia
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2020
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/414131604430277237/The-Rural-Urban-Divide-and-Intergenerational-Educational-Mobility-in-a-Developing-Country-Theory-and-Evidence-from-Indonesia
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34731
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