Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?

Joanne Blanden and Lindsey Macmillan ()

No 14-01, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: Evidence on intergenerational income mobility in the UK is dated. This paper seeks to update our knowledge by introducing new estimates of mobility for later measures of earnings in the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts. Given poor or non-existent data on more recent cohorts we adopt an indirect approach to assessing more recent mobility trends. This exploits the close link between income persistence across generations and the gap in educational achievement by family background (referred to as educational inequality). We gather a comprehensive set of data which measures educational inequality for different cohorts at different points in the education system. We conclude that educational inequality has declined for cohorts born after 1980, and this is associated with rising average educational achievement. In contrast, evidence on high attainment does not reveal that educational inequality has declined; this suggests that policy seeking to promote equality of opportunity should encourage students to aim high.

Keywords: intergenerational income mobility; educational inequality; children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Working Paper: Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance? (2014)
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