Educational Mobility Across Multiple Generations in Indonesia
Sarah Cattan, Antonio Dalla-Zuanna, Jan Stuhler, Po Yin Wong
TLDR
This paper finds greater multigenerational educational mobility in Indonesia than parent-child correlations suggest, driven by financial constraints and marital norms.
Key contributions
- Analyzes multigenerational educational mobility across three generations in Indonesia.
- Reveals higher multigenerational mobility than parent-child correlations suggest, a novel finding.
- Proposes a framework linking mobility to financial constraints and cultural marital norms.
- Validates framework using regional variations in financial crises and marital customs.
Why it matters
This research challenges the notion that socioeconomic advantages persist across generations in developing countries, showing higher mobility in Indonesia. It introduces a novel framework considering financial constraints and cultural norms, offering crucial insights for policymakers.
Original Abstract
Standard intergenerational measures have been shown to understate the long-run persistence of socioeconomic advantages in developed countries. We study theoretically and empirically whether this pattern extends to less developed settings, using Indonesia as a case study. Using the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) and Census data, we study multigenerational correlations in education across three generations. Contrary to previous findings, we observe greater multigenerational mobility than parent-child correlations alone would suggest. We develop a theoretical framework to highlight two key factors influencing multigenerational dynamics in developing countries: (1) financial and credit constraints, and (2) cultural norms related to marital sorting. To confirm their relevance, we exploit regional variations in exposure to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and in marital customs.
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