Family conditions may have more of an impact on upward social mobility than gender inequality

What is it about?

This study investigates the genuine impacts of education expansion, education inequality, and parental dependency on intergenerational mobility. It utilizes data from the Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility for 153 countries and cohorts born between the 1940s and 1980s. By employing a causal machine learning approach to address confounding problems, this research reveals that education expansion can promote intergenerational mobility to a certain extent. However, its effectiveness is partially diminished by education inequality and may be ineffective if parental dependency exists at a high level. Furthermore, this study also indicates that while gender inequality in intergenerational mobility still exists, its degree has been significantly reduced across generations. When compared to parental dependency, gender effects are far less important. Therefore, there is a need to reassess the roles of parental dependency and gender bias in intergenerational mobility, especially when parental dependency is currently underestimated, and gender bias is overemphasized.

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Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash

Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The author suggests that policymakers promoting social mobility should focus on shifting traditions such as “like father, like son”. He adds: “The study shows that while gender inequality in intergenerational mobility persists, it has significantly decreased across generations and is less important than parental influence. Thus, reassessing the roles of parental influence and gender bias is necessary, as the former is currently underestimated and the latter overemphasized.”

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