Intergenerational mobility patterns for schooling, occupation and household wealth: the case of mexico

Type Working Paper
Title Intergenerational mobility patterns for schooling, occupation and household wealth: the case of mexico
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2015
URL http://www.ceey.org.mx/sites/default/files/adjuntos/dt-009-2015_si.pdf
Abstract
This paper presents estimates of intergenerational schooling, occupational and household wealth mobility for Mexico. We use the EMOVI-2011, a nationally representative survey with retrospective questions that capture adult children and parental information on schooling, employment and assets for a sample of men and women between 25 and 64 years old. We studied mobility patterns across generations (respondents ages 25-30, 31-41, 42-52, and 53-64), for different population groups and for different percentiles of the outcome distributions. We found that individuals have experienced upward intergenerational absolute mobility for the three outcomes. Results concerning relative mobility differ by outcome. Intergenerational relative schooling mobility increased steadily over the years for every subgroup of the population. Estimates within each cohort suggest that relative mobility is roughly constant along the distribution of completed grades of schooling. Intergenerational relative occupational mobility increases with the age of the individual, except for individuals with an indigenous origin. The level of mobility differs notably at different points of the distribution. Individuals’ occupational choice is more dependent on their fathers’ occupation at the top end of the distribution. Intergenerational household wealth mobility is slightly higher when old as well. That is, wealth of older generations is less dependent on their families’ wealth. The same pattern is observed for the vulnerable groups: women, individuals who were raised in rural areas and indigenous people.

Related studies

»