The gender gap in intergenerational mobility

Abstract

This paper employs mobility matrices, univariate regressions and multivariate econometric techniques based on the recently published nationally representative household survey (PNAD-2014) from Brazil to investigate the relevance of the gendered patterns in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment between parents and their descendants. The empirical evidence from these three different approaches is absolutely unanimous: In Brazil there is a significant variation in degree of mobility across genders, with a higher mobility level for daughters than for sons. The reason for this gender gap in mobility lies in the chances of attaining the educational levels: regardless of the educational background of the parents, females have a lower chance of remaining without school certificate and a greater probability to achieve a tertiary education. The results of this paper point out also that the educational attainment of children is strongly associated with the education of their most educated parent, regardless of their gender and this correlation is higher for female than for male. Concerning the evolution of the persistence in education over time, the findings indicate for both sexes a significant increase in intergeneration mobility over the last decades. However this positive evolution is much more modest when the relative deviation in education across generations is excluded from the investigation. Finally, this study has demonstrated that parental occupation levels and individual characteristics (race, locality of residence and year of birth) also have a statistically significant effect on the prospects for mobility.

A Story of Strengths and Weaknesses in Tertiary Education: Evaluating ‘Mobility’ and ‘Opportunities’ in OECD Countries with Composite Indicators

“…The composite indicator defined in this study may thus represent a useful tool for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of public policies in the field of education [6,19,20]. The main advantage of our framework is that, in contrast to the mobility indices that consider only one dimension (e.g., [5]), here we are able to capture two different pieces of information simultaneously [21]: (i) the difference in the probability of attaining tertiary education given the family status [40][41][42], and (ii) the probability that a child does not attain tertiary education independent of the educational level attained by the parents [9,12,13].…”

“…For instance, Italy and Turkey showed a particularly low share (5% and 4%, respectively); from the opposite side of the ranking, particularly high shares were observed in Israel (43%), Canada (42%), and New Zealand (42%). Low upward mobility, however, does not necessarily indicate a lower opportunity to attain a high education level [15]; upward mobility may be low in countries where a considerable share of parents has already attained tertiary education [16][17][18][19]. To evaluate how a family's educational level matters for a given individual in achieving the highest educational title, 26 countries (Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Norway, New Zealand, Holland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Sweden, and Turkey) were investigated considering aggregate (country-level) data for individuals 30-44 years old from OECD [14].…”

“…More specifically, 'mobility' reflects the probability of achieving tertiary education for children coming from families with a different-i.e., lower (e.g., primary or secondary)-level of education [29]. 'Opportunities' deal with the probability for a child to attain tertiary education, regardless of the education level achieved by the parents [19]. The former dimension is quantified with an index elaborating the difference in probability of achieving tertiary education between children from families characterized with heterogeneous levels of education (12,2019).…”

The geography of intergenerational mobility: Evidence of educational persistence and the “Great Gatsby Curve” in Brazil

“…In the last decade, several studies have explored the intergenerational educational mobility in Brazil and confirmed a strong positive association between education outcomes of parents and children (see, for example, Leone, 2021; Mahlmeister et al, 2019; Ribeiro, 2017; Torche & Ribeiro, 2010). In addition, the literature points to the special relevance of gendered patterns in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment: in Brazil, women present higher levels of mobility than men and the educational attainment of children is more strongly associated with the education of their most educated parent, regardless of sex (Leone, 2021).…”

“…However, in the context of developing countries where the access to formal education has been considerably expanded in recent decades, the relative measure of mobility will make more sense for the investigation of mobility (Torche, 2019). Leone (2021) confirmed for Brazil a significant increase in the intergenerational educational mobility over time. However, he showed that this increase was principally caused by the general increase over time in the years of schooling (“elevator effect”) and not by changes in parent–child transmission.…”