Publication: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Rural Economy : Evidence from Nepal and Vietnam
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Date
2011-04
ISSN
0022166X
Published
2011-04
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Abstract
This paper presents evidence on intergenerational occupational mobility from agriculture to the nonfarm sector using survey data from Nepal and Vietnam. In the absence of credible instruments, the degree of selection on observables is used as a guide to the degree of selection on unobservables, a la Altonji et al. (2005) to address the unobserved genetic correlations. The results show that intergenerational occupational mobility is lower among women in both countries, and is lower in Nepal compared with Vietnam. In the case of Nepal, strong evidence favors a causal role played by the mother's nonfarm participation in the daughter's occupation choice, possibly because of cultural inheritance in a traditional society.
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Publication Occupational Dualism and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in the Rural Economy(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07)This paper extends the Becker-Tomes model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural economy characterized by farm-nonfarm occupational dualism and provides a comparative analysis of rural China and rural India. The model builds a micro-foundation for the widely used linear-in-levels estimating equation. Returns to education for parents and productivity of financial investment in children's education determine relative mobility, as measured by the slope, while the intercept depends, among other factors, on the degree of persistence in nonfarm occupations. Unlike many existing studies based on coresident samples, our estimates of intergenerational mobiity do not suffer from truncation bias. The sons in rural India faced lower educational mobility compared with the sons in rural China in the 1970s to 1990s. To understand the role of genetic inheritance, Altonji et al. (2005) sensitivity analysis is combined with the evidence on intergenerational correlation in cognitive ability in economics and behavioral genetics literature. The observed persistence can be due solely to genetic correlations in China, but not in India. Fathers' nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining a sons' schooling in India, but separable in China. There is evidence of emerging complementarity for the younger cohorts in rural China. Structural change in favor of the nonfarm sector contributed to educational inequality in rural India. Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms suggests that the model provides plausible explanations for the contrasting roles of occupational dualism in intergenerational educational mobility in rural India and rural China.Publication Estimating Intergenerational Mobility with Incomplete Data(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04)The rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility have become increasingly popular in economics literature. Recent evidence shows that rank-based measures are less affected by measurement error and life-cycle bias compared with other standard measures such as intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation. However, most of the available household surveys suffer from sample truncation, because coresidency is used to define household membership. There is no evidence on how sample truncation affects the rank-based mobility estimates relative to intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation. 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The results strengthen the case for rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility when working with the standard household surveys.Publication The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11)This paper provides an analysis of the rural-urban divide in intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia with two distinguishing features. First, the estimating equations are derived from theory incorporating rural-urban differences in returns to education and school quality, and possible complementarity between parent’s education and financial investment. Second, the data are suitable for tackling the biases from sample truncation due to coresidency and omitted cognitive ability heterogeneity. The evidence rejects the workhorse linear intergenerational educational persistence equation in favor of a convex relation in rural and urban Indonesia. The rural-urban relative mobility curves cross, with the children of low educated fathers enjoying higher relative mobility in rural areas, while the pattern flips in favor of the urban children when the father has more than nine years of schooling. However, the rural children face lower absolute mobility across the whole distribution of father's schooling. Estimates from the investment equation suggest that, in urban areas, children~^!!^s peers are complementary to financial investment by parents, while the adult role models are substitutes. In contrast, separability holds in villages. Peers and role models are not responsible for the convexity in both rural and urban areas, suggesting more efficient investment by educated parents as a likely mechanism, as proposed by Becker et al. (2015, 2018). 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The model delivers the widely used linear conditional expectation function under constant returns and separability but generates an irrelevance result: parental bias does not affect relative mobility. With diminishing returns and complementarity, the conditional expectation function can be concave or convex, and parental bias affects both relative and absolute mobility. This paper tests these predictions in India and China using data not subject to coresidency bias. The evidence rejects the linear conditional expectation function in rural and urban India in favor of a concave relation. Girls in India face lower mobility irrespective of location when born to fathers with low schooling, but the gender gap closes when the father is college educated. In China, the conditional expectation function is convex for sons in urban areas, but linear in all other cases. The convexity supports the complementarity hypothesis of Becker et al. (2018) for the urban sons and leads to gender divergence in relative mobility for the children of highly educated fathers. In urban China, and urban and rural India, the mechanisms are underestimation of the ability of girls and unfavorable school environment. There is some evidence of pure son preference in rural India. The girls in rural China do not face bias in financial investment by parents, but they still face lower mobility when born to uneducated parents. Gender barriers in rural schools seem to be the primary mechanism.Publication Admission is Free Only if Your Dad is Rich! Distributional Effects of Corruption in Schools in Developing Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10)In the standard model of corruption, the rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement of law is not impersonal or unbiased and the poor have little bargaining power. In a more realistic model where the probability of punishment depends on the household's economic status, bribes are likely to be regressive, both at the extensive and intensive margins. Using rainfall variations as an instrument for household income in rural Bangladesh, this paper finds strong evidence that corruption in schools is doubly regressive: (i) the poor are more likely to pay bribes, and (ii) among the bribe payers, the poor pay a higher share of their income. The results indicate that progressivity in bribes reported in the earlier literature may be due to identification challenges. The Ordinary Least Squares regressions show that bribes increase with household income, but the Instrumental Variables estimates suggest that the Ordinary Least Squares results are spurious, driven by selection on ability and preference. The evidence reported in this paper implies that "free schooling" is free only for the rich and corruption makes the playing field skewed against the poor. This may provide a partial explanation for the observed educational immobility in developing countries.
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