The Last or Lasting Samurai? The Impact of Secondary Education Expansion on Elite Attainment and Occupational Sorting after Japan's Meiji Restoration

Hidehiko Ichimura, Yasuyuki Sawada, Yutaro Takayasu and Mari Tanaka
Additional contact information
Hidehiko Ichimura: Department of Economics, The University of Arizona and Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo
Yasuyuki Sawada: Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo
Yutaro Takayasu: Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University

No CIRJE-F-1280, CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo

Abstract: When societies transition from hereditary to meritocratic systems, to what extent does educational expansion broaden access to elite positions and change inherited patterns of occupational sorting? We study Japan after the Meiji Restoration, which abolished samurai hereditary privileges in public-sector positions and modernized education. Exploiting cohort-specific discontinuities in access to secondary schooling created by the expansion of public secondary schools, we find that greater access increased elite attainment among both samurai and commoner families, but most additional elites entered sectors historically associated with their family background. Many had non-elite fathers, indicating greater upward intergenerational mobility into elite status.

Pages: 77 pages
Date: 2026-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2026/2026cf1280.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tky:fseres:2026cf1280

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CIRJE F-Series from CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CIRJE administrative office ().