Inherited Inequality in Latin America

Francisco Ferreira, Paolo Brunori (), Guido Neidhofer (), Pedro Salas-Rojo () and Louis Sirugue ()
Additional contact information
Paolo Brunori: University of Florence
Guido Neidhofer: ZEW Mannheim
Pedro Salas-Rojo: London School of Economics
Louis Sirugue: London School of Economics

No 18254, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper argues that relative measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity are closely related ways of quantifying the inheritability of inequality. We review both literatures for Latin America, looking both at income and educational persistence. We document very high levels of intergenerational persistence and inequality of opportunity for education, with inherited characteristics predicting 29% to 52% of the current-generation variance in years of schooling. Inherited circumstances are somewhat less predictive of educational achievement, measured through standardized test scores, accounting for 20% to 30% of their variance. Our estimates of inequality of opportunity for income acquisition suggest that between 46% to 66% of contemporary income Gini coefficients can be predicted by a relatively narrow set of inherited circumstances, making Latin America a region of high inequality inheritability by international standards. Our review also finds a very wide range of intergenerational income elasticity estimates, with substantial uncertainty driven by data challenges and methodological differences.

Keywords: inequality of opportunity; intergenerational mobility; inherited inequality; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 I39 J62 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-lam
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Working Paper: Inherited inequality in Latin America (2025)
Working Paper: Inherited Inequality in Latin America (2025)
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