Ebook Educational attainment and intergenerational social mobility in South Africa
South Africa’s racially segregated past has left it with an income inequality level that ranks amongst the highest in the world, representing a key policy challenge for the current government. Underlying the disparity in income, however, is a deeper source of inequality: differential access to income earning opportunities in the South African labour market. Large segments of the working age population remain excluded from formal sector employment in a relatively skills-intensive economy as a result inter alia of insufficient educational attainment.
In contrast, individuals with high levels of education are able to find work more easily, to command higher wages within a given occupation, and also to improve their chances of upward occupational mobility. Studies by Blau and Duncan (1967) and Featherman and Hauser (1978) suggest that educational attainment is the main observed determinant of occupational status, which directly influences earnings.
We are interested in intergenerational social mobility as influenced by educational status because it indicates access to opportunity and therefore the ability of the current black generation to overcome its historical disadvantage. From a broader welfare analysis perspective, we are also interested in this topic since social mobility represents one of the major forces that drives change in the aggregate income distribution over time. Analysing the income distribution at any one point in time using cross-sectional data provides one with only a static picture.
The focus of this study is on analysing the extent of intergenerational social mobility in South Africa over the period 1970 to 2001. Within this framework, its purpose is to determine the extent to which parents’ schooling outcomes feed through into children’s schooling. This allows one to evaluate the degree to which the more distant history of weak education in the formerly black schooling system has influenced schooling outcomes of recent generations through intergenerational transmission of educational status.
The potential efficacy of policy interventions aimed at improving schooling outcomes of black students currently attending school is limited by the degree of social immobility that exists in contemporary South African society. The bulk of these students have poorly educated parents, which may impair their own progress through school via a number of mechanisms. However, it may be argued that such students are precisely the ones policy should continue to target, particularly if one shares the view of Dahan and Gaviria (2001: 537) that levelling the playing fields may be more effective in terms of achieving equity in the long run than redistributing incomes ex post.
The paper begins with an explanation of the theoretical explanation for why we would expect educational attainment to influence the schooling of future generations, and briefly presents the findings of authors who have conducted research into this issue. It also touches on other factors which research has identified as important determinants of educational attainment in South Africa. Next, attention turns to a description of the data sets and methodology employed for purposes of empirical analysis. Preliminary analysis indicates that mean educational attainment has risen substantially, reflecting steady progress for almost a century that in the case of the black population has accelerated after the 1940s. Turning to a formal enquiry, the South African estimates for two social mobility indices are presented together with comparable values for Latin American countries, a number of which have inequality levels similar to South Africa’s. Finally, the paper concludes with implications for policymaking.
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