Publication:
Gender, Geography and Generations : Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Post-reform India

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.36 MB)
431 downloads
English Text (137.79 KB)
88 downloads
Date
2012-05
ISSN
Published
2012-05
Editor(s)
Abstract
India experienced sustained economic growth for more than two decades following the economic liberalization in 1991. While economic growth reduced poverty significantly, it was associated with an increase in inequality. Does this increase in inequality reflect deep-seated inequality of opportunity or efficient incentive structure in a market oriented economy? This paper provides evidence on economic mobility in post-reform India by focusing on the educational attainment of children. It uses two related measures of immobility: sibling and intergenerational correlations. The paper analyzes the trends in and patterns of educational mobility from 1992/93 to 2006, with a special emphasis on the roles played by gender and geography. The evidence shows that family background plays a strong role; the estimated sibling correlation in India in 2006 is higher than the available estimates for Latin American countries. There is a persistent gender gap in rural and less-developed areas. The only group that experienced substantial improvements is women in urban and developed areas, with the lower caste women benefiting the most. Almost 70 percent of the variance in children's education can be accounted for by parental education and geographic location. The authors provide possible explanations for the apparently puzzling improvements for urban women in a country with strong son preference.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Emran, M. Shahe; Shilpi, Forhad. 2012. Gender, Geography and Generations : Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Post-reform India. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 6055. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9362 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    Geopolitics and the World Trading System
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-23) Mattoo, Aaditya; Ruta, Michele; Staiger, Robert W.
    Until the beginning of this century, the GATT/WTO system worked. Economic research provided a compelling explanation. It showed that if governments maximize the well-being of their own countries broadly defined, GATT/WTO principles would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation over their trade policy choices. Now heightened geopolitical rivalry seems to have undermined the WTO. A simple transposition of the previous rationalization suggests that geopolitics and trade cooperation are not compatible. The paper shows that this is only true if rivalry eclipses any consideration of own-country well-being. In all other circumstances, there are gains from trade cooperation even with geopolitics. Furthermore, the WTO’s relevance is in question only if it adheres too rigidly to its existing rules and norms. Through measured adaptation to the geopolitical imperative, the WTO can continue to thrive as a forum for multilateral trade cooperation in the age of geopolitics.
  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05) Foster, Elizabeth; Jolliffe, Dean Mitchell; Ibarra, Gabriel Lara; Lakner, Christoph; Tettah-Baah, Samuel
    Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.
  • Publication
    Geopolitical Fragmentation and Friendshoring
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-26) Grover, Arti; Vézina, Pierre-Louis
    This paper examines the relationship between geopolitical fragmentation and friendshoring of foreign investments over time, countries, and sectors. The analysis uses comprehensive data on foreign direct investments covering greenfield projects, mergers and acquisitions, and stocks of affiliates, as well as data on four alternative measures of geopolitical distance between countries. The gravity estimations suggest that, first, geopolitical differences have a negative effect on foreign investments and the magnitude has heightened in the post-pandemic period compared to a decade ago. Second, it is primarily the companies from advanced Western economies whose foreign investment decisions are increasingly shaped by friendshoring forces. Finally, the paper shows that friendshoring is not only confined to strategic industries, implying that allocations of foreign direct investments may not solely reflect national security or resilience considerations.
  • Publication
    A Global Assessment of Domestic Petroleum Fuel Prices
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-26) Akcura, Elcin
    Oil prices have been increasingly volatile since 2004. However, the impact of this volatility on domestic end-user prices differs significantly by fuel and country. Some countries fully pass through global price movements to domestic end-user prices, and some countries freeze domestic fuel prices for long periods of time. Fuel subsidies emerge or grow if domestic prices significantly diverge from international prices in times of rising international oil prices. This paper draws on two new databases developed by the author for the purposes of this paper to analyze the degree of pass-through of international price volatility onto domestic consumers for eight fuels between December 2017 and December 2023 for up to 125 economies, depending on the fuel. This period saw significant oil price volatility on account of events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The paper finds that domestic prices in many countries did not follow international fuel prices within the period analyzed. Countries with price controls had much lower levels of pass-through than those with price deregulation. Countries that adjusted their fuel prices at frequent intervals (weekly or monthly) had higher levels of price pass-through than those adjusting them quarterly or less frequently. Currency depreciation and the existence of an official fuel subsidy are associated with lower levels of price pass-through, and the impact of being a net crude oil or net refined fuel exporter is mixed. The results show that not tracking international prices closely is associated with higher incidences of fuel shortages, fuel smuggling, and fuel black marketing.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    The Status of Yemini Women : From Aspiration to Opportunity
    (Washington, DC, 2014-02) World Bank
    The report draws on the conceptual framework of the world development 2012: gender equality and development, and the regional report on gender equality, opening doors: gender equality in the Middle East and North Africa. The report's analytic approach is unique in threading together three bodies of evidence and analysis to shed new light on significant trends and causes underpinning the large gender disparities in the country. The report presents: i) a fresh look at available survey data on human development and socio-economic indicators in the country; ii) a brief history and in-depth analysis of the most critical legal barriers to women's and girl's full participation in Yemeni society; and iii) insights from a rich qualitative dataset collected in January 2011.The findings especially highlight the powerful roles of social norms and legal rights and entitlements in placing women and girls at a disadvantage and constraining not only faster progress on gender equality but also the country's economic development. The objectives of this report are two-fold: first, to take stock of the status of gender outcomes in Yemen and understand the forces that are driving the strong gender inequalities; and second, drawing on these insights and outcomes of the study, to highlight promising areas for policy action in this crucial transition period. The report explores how individual aspirations and opportunities in the areas of education, family formation, and labor force participation are constrained by the severe gender gaps in Yemeni society.
  • Publication
    Changing Norms about Gender Inequality in Education : Evidence from Bangladesh
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11) Blunch, Niels-Hugo; Das, Maitreyi Bordia
    Using a recent household survey for two cohorts of married women, this paper examines norms about gender equality in education for children and adults. Among the main findings are that gender education gap norms have changed: younger generations of women are more positive about female vs. male education, both as pertaining to child and adult education outcomes. Perhaps the strongest result is that Bangladeshi women are more likely to espouse attitudes of gender equality in education for their children and less so about gender equality among spouses. It is also easier to explain norms regarding children's education and more difficult to explain norms about equality in marriages. The authors believe that question on relative education of boys and girls captures the value of education per se, while the question on educational equality in marriage captures the norms regarding marriage and the relative worth of husbands and wives. The effect of education in determining norms is significant though complex, and spans own and spousal education, as well as that of older females in the household. This indicates sharing of education norms effects or externalities arising from spousal education in the production of gender education gap norms within marriage as well as arising from the presence of older educated females in the household. Lastly, the authors also find associations between gender education gap norms and household poverty, information processing and religion, though the evidence here is more mixed.
  • Publication
    Understanding the Dynamics of Gender and Nutrition in Bangladesh : Implications for Policy and Programming
    (Washington, DC, 2010-07) World Bank
    During the past two decades, Bangladesh has made considerable progress in development, sustaining high rates of economic growth and reducing poverty rates by nine percent between 2000 and 2005. This report aims to contribute to reducing malnutrition in Bangladesh through a better understanding of gender-nutrition linkages. It is also part of a larger effort on multisectoral approaches to improving nutrition. The report takes as its starting point, the hypothesis that gender inequality in Bangladesh is instrumental in shaping nutrition outcomes. This study has demonstrated that gender and nutrition are intimately associated and that there are strong linkages between women's status and both their own, and their children's nutritional status.
  • Publication
    A Gender (R)evolution in the Making? Expanding Women's Economic Opportunities in Central America : A Decade in Review
    (Washington, DC, 2012-01) World Bank
    A Gender Revolution in the Making was produced by the World Bank as a special report on the dichotomy of the economic participation of women in Central America from 1997-2007. Central America made considerable progress during 1997-2006: stronger economic and political stability, overall positive albeit modest economic growth and improvements in socio-economic outcomes. Nonetheless, the panorama for women in the region, and in particular their ability to work and generate income is mixed. Labor force participation of women in Central America remained unchanged over the decade, with one in every two women of working age still not participating economically. This is lower than the rest of Latin America, a region with the lowest labor force participation in the world, although it has improved significantly in recent years. And yet, women in the region have made major advances in closing the gender earnings gaps and increasing their ability to earn income. Women's contribution to overall income generation in Central America rose significantly over the decade. This report aims to identify the factors behind these three trends. However, stagnant labor force participation rates for women contrasted with narrowing earnings gaps and a greater contribution to overall income apparent in Central America from 1997 to 2006.
  • Publication
    Lasting Welfare Effects of Widowhood in a Poor Country
    (2011-07-01) van de Walle, Dominique
    Little is known about the situation facing widows and their dependent children in West Africa especially after the widow remarries. Women in Malian society are vulnerable to the loss of husbands especially in rural areas. Households headed by widows have significantly lower living standards on average than male or other female headed households in both rural and urban areas; this holds both unconditionally and conditional on observable household and individual characteristics including age. Furthermore, the adverse welfare effects of widowhood appear to persist even after widows are absorbed into male headed households. An examination of individual measures of well-being further reveals that, relative to other women, worse outcomes for ever-widowed women persist through remarriage. These detrimental effects are passed on to children, indicating an intergenerational transmission of poverty stemming from widowhood.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    The Journey Ahead
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31) Bossavie, Laurent; Garrote Sánchez, Daniel; Makovec, Mattia
    The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.
  • Publication
    Economic Recovery
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06) Malpass, David; Georgieva, Kristalina; Yellen, Janet
    World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.
  • Publication
    South Asia Development Update, April 2024: Jobs for Resilience
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-02) World Bank
    South Asia is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region over the next two years. This is largely thanks to robust growth in India, but growth is also expected to pick up in most other South Asian economies. However, growth in the near-term is more reliant on the public sector than elsewhere, whereas private investment, in particular, continues to be weak. Efforts to rein in elevated debt, borrowing costs, and fiscal deficits may eventually weigh on growth and limit governments' ability to respond to increasingly frequent climate shocks. Yet, the provision of public goods is among the most effective strategies for climate adaptation. This is especially the case for households and farms, which tend to rely on shifting their efforts to non-agricultural jobs. These strategies are less effective forms of climate adaptation, in part because opportunities to move out of agriculture are limited by the region’s below-average employment ratios in the non-agricultural sector and for women. Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the region fails to fully capitalize on its demographic dividend. Vibrant, competitive firms are key to unlocking the demographic dividend, robust private investment, and workers’ ability to move out of agriculture. A range of policies could spur firm growth, including improved business climates and institutions, the removal of financial sector restrictions, and greater openness to trade and capital flows.
  • Publication
    Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Calleja, Ramon V., Jr.; Mbuya, Nkosinathi V.N.; Morimoto, Tomo; Thitsy, Sophavanh
    The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.
  • Publication
    Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12) Malpass, David
    World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.