Converging Paths: Intergenerational Educational Mobility and the Decline of Gender and Geographic Gaps in Bangladesh

Sergio Olivieri, Giovanni Razzu and Ayago Esmubancha Wambile

No 11386, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This study examines intergenerational educational mobility in Bangladesh across cohorts born between the 1950s and 1990s, using data from the 2022 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Intergenerational regression coefficients and intergenerational correlations are estimated, yielding three main findings. First, while the intergenerational regression coefficient declines for the 1990s cohort, suggesting reduced persistence of the effect of parental education on children's outcomes, the intergenerational correlation, which accounts for inequality in educational attainment across both generations, follows an inverted U-shaped pattern, resulting in no net mobility change. This finding reverses earlier evidence of increasing persistence through the 1970s and indicates that educational expansion since the 1980s has progressively benefited children of less-educated parents. Second, unlike patterns observed elsewhere in the region, where urban residence confers mobility advantages, Bangladesh exhibits no urban premium. Overall mobility remains higher in rural areas, although substantial convergence occurs in the 1990s cohort. At the regional level, an East-West convergence is observed, driven by mobility improvements in traditionally less-mobile Eastern regions. Third, women historically exhibited higher mobility than men through the 1980s, with gender convergence emerging only in the 1990s cohort, largely due to accelerated male mobility gains among urban males. Bangladesh's educational mobility trajectory is thus characterized by convergence across gender, urban-rural, and region dimensions, a pattern distinct from both its historical experience and broader South Asian trends, although educational gains remain disconnected from labor market outcomes.

Date: 2026-05-19
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