Does Economic Inequality Account for Cross-Country Discrepancies in Relative Social Mobility: An Empirical Investigation

John Weirstrass Muteba Mwamba, Paul Mumba Shiwamya and Benjamin Mudiangombe Mudiangombe
Additional contact information
Paul Mumba Shiwamya: Faculte’ des Sciences de Gestion, Université Nouveaux Horizons, 2465, Route Kasapa Quartier Gambela, Lubumbashi 2465, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Benjamin Mudiangombe Mudiangombe: School of Economics, APK Campus, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa

Economies, 2022, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: This paper makes use of the Markov Switching model and the K-Means Cluster analysis to estimate the transition probabilities of social mobility and to analyze the impact of social inequalities on intergenerational social mobility. The dataset is a sample of 44 countries and comprises the 2018 social mobility indices, and the 2018 or latest income inequality measures. The data are collected from the OECD Income and Wealth Distribution Databases, and from the world economic forum. It was found that the likelihood of moving upward or downward the social ladder is minimal in both developed and emerging countries. In addition, the paper found that the hypothesis according to which high-income countries have a higher relative social mobility is not necessarily true. The United States, a high-income country, was found to have a lower social mobility, similar to that of Turkey and South Africa. Furthermore, it was found that when poverty decreases, intergenerational social mobility increases in both lower and higher mobility countries. Policies that promote equality of opportunities at all stages of life are therefore recommended to improve intergenerational social mobility.

Keywords: social mobility; intergenerational mobility; transition probabilities; K-means; Markov-switching process; Great Gatsby Curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E F I J O Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/11/279/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/11/279/ (text/html)

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:gam:jecomi:v:10:y:2022:i:11:p:279-:d:966613

Access Statistics for this article

Economies is currently edited by Ms. Adore Zhou

More articles in Economies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().