Intergenerational Mobility around the World
Using individual data from over 400 surveys, this paper compiles a global database of intergenerational mobility in education for 153 countries covering 97 percent of the world’s population. For 87 percent of the world’s population, it provides trends in intergenerational mobility for individua...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/817351624329601595/Intergenerational-Mobility-around-the-World http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35827 |
| Summary: | Using individual data from over 400 surveys, this paper
compiles a global database of intergenerational mobility
in education for 153 countries covering 97 percent of the
world’s population. For 87 percent of the world’s population,
it provides trends in intergenerational mobility for
individuals born between 1950 to 1989. The findings
show that absolute mobility in education—the share of
respondents that obtains higher levels of education than
their parents—is higher in the developed world despite the
higher levels of parental educational attainment. Relative
mobility—measuring the degree of independence between
parent and child years of schooling—is also found to be
greater in the developed world. Together, these findings
point to severe challenges in intergenerational mobility in
the poorest parts of the world. Beyond national income
levels, the paper explores the correlation between intergenerational
mobility and a variety of country characteristics.
Countries with higher rates of mobility have (i) higher tax
revenues and rates of government expenditures, especially
on education; (ii) better child health indicators (less stunting
and lower infant mortality); (iii) higher school quality
(more teachers per pupil and fewer school dropouts); and
(iv) less residential segregation. |
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