In the absence of longitudinal data that track individuals over an extended period
of time, information on childhood socio-economic status can be provided by
questions that ask adults to recall their parents’ education or their economic
status at childhood. The usefulness of these data, however, requires that people
are willing to report this information, and that these reports do not vary
systematically over time, for example in response to changes in current
circumstances. In this paper, we evaluate recall data for South Africa, collected
from the same adults in the first two waves of a national panel survey. We show
that the data, particularly on father’s education, are compromised by very low
and selective response, reflecting the fragmented nature of many South African
families. Among those who do provide information, parental education is reported
more consistently over time than the subjective appraisals of childhood economic
status. However, we find also that both sets of indicators are sensitive to changes
in current income, which would be consistent with anchoring effects. Furthermore
changes in subjective appraisals of the past are highly correlated with changes in
subjective appraisals of the present.