IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v59y2013ips111-s137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Educational Inheritance and the Distribution of Occupations: Evidence from South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Malcolm Keswell
  • Sarah Girdwood
  • Murray Leibbrandt

Abstract

We analyse the role of educational opportunity in shaping inequality in the distribution of occupations in the long-run. We start by modelling the probability that a child occupies the same or a different rung on the occupational ladder as her parents controlling for both the educational attainment of the child, as well as the level of educational opportunity of the child. These conditional probabilities are then used to construct separate transition matrices by level of educational opportunity, race and gender, which in turn are used to the compute the steady-state distribution of occupations. Finally, we use the timing of political events in the history of the struggle to end Apartheid to devise an identification strategy that permits a causal interpretation of the role of educational opportunity. We find evidence that educational opportunity has a strong conditioning effect on the distribution of occupations in steady state. In particular, African female children who inherit the same level of educational opportunity as their parents are 9% more likely to be in the bottom of the occupation distribution in steady-state, than the observed rate for the population at large, whereas they would face a 4% lower probability if they were exposed to better educational opportunities.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Malcolm Keswell & Sarah Girdwood & Murray Leibbrandt, 2013. "Educational Inheritance and the Distribution of Occupations: Evidence from South Africa," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 111-137, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i::p:s111-s137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/roiw.12066
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    2. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    3. Thomas, Duncan, 1996. "Education across Generations in South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 330-334, May.
    4. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    5. Megan Louw & Servaas Van Der Berg & Derek Yu, 2007. "Convergence Of A Kind: Educational Attainment And Intergenerational Social Mobility In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(3), pages 548-571, September.
    6. Megan Louw & Servaas van der Berg & Derek Yu, 2006. "Educational attainment and intergenerational social mobility in South Africa," Working Papers 09/2006, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    7. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard & Arden Finn & Jonathan Argent, 2010. "Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 101, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Gradín, 2019. "Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 553-576, May.
    2. Arden Finn & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2016. "Patterns of persistence: Intergenerational mobility and education in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 175, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Ivan Turok & Josh Budlender & Justin Visagie, 2017. "The Role of Informal Urban Settlements in Upward Mobility," Working Papers 201701, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    4. UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa & Shantanu Mukherjee & Angela Lusigi & Eunice Kamwendo & Astra Bonini, "undated". "Inequality, Gender and Human Development in Africa," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2017-12, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    5. Stephan Klasen & Derek Blades, 2013. "Issues and Challenges in Measuring National Income, Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality in Sub-Saharan African Countries: An Introduction," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 1-8, October.
    6. repec:rac:ecchap:2017-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Mukherjee, Shantanu & Lusigi, Angela & Kamwendo, Eunice & Bonini, Astra, 2017. "Income Inequality Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, determinants and consequences: Inequality, Gender and Human Development in Africa," UNDP Africa Reports 267647, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    8. Carlos Gradín, 2019. "Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 553-576, May.
    9. Ivan Turok & Joshua Budlender & Justin Visagie, 2018. "Urban “slums” and social mobility," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(6), pages 703-725, October.
    10. Ivan Turok & Jackie Borel-Saladin, 2018. "The theory and reality of urban slums: Pathways-out-of-poverty or cul-de-sacs?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 767-789, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2009. "Finance and Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 287-318, November.
    2. Manoel BITTENCOURT, 2009. "Macroeconomic Performance And Inequality: Brazil, 1983–94," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 47(1), pages 30-52, March.
    3. Manoel Bittencourt, 2010. "Financial development and inequality: Brazil 1985–1994," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 113-130, May.
    4. Christophe Ehrhart, 2009. "The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature," Working Papers 107, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. Miquel Pellicer & Vimal Ranchhod & Mare Sarr & Eva Wegner, 2011. "Inequality Traps in South Africa: An overview and research agenda," SALDRU Working Papers 57, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    6. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.
    7. Azariadis, Costas & Stachurski, John, 2005. "Poverty Traps," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, Elsevier.
    8. Boukraine, Wissem, 2020. "The finance-inequality nexus in the BRICS countries: evidence from an ARDL bound testing approach," MPRA Paper 101976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Juliano Junqueira Assunção, 2005. "Non-agricultural land use and land reform: theory and evidence from Brazil," Textos para discussão 496, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    10. Çakır, Mustafa Yavuz & Kabundi, Alain, 2013. "Trade shocks from BRIC to South Africa: A global VAR analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 190-202.
    11. Michael P. Keane & Eswar S. Prasad, 2002. "Inequality, Transfers, And Growth: New Evidence From The Economic Transition In Poland," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 324-341, May.
    12. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    13. Javier Parada Gómez Urquiza & Alejandro López-Feldman, 2013. "Poverty dynamics in rural Mexico: What does the future hold?," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 55-74, November.
    14. Takuma Kunieda & Masashi Takahashi, 2022. "Inequality and institutional quality in a growth model," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 189-213, April.
    15. Bartels, Charlotte & Jäger, Simon & Obergruber, Natalie, 2020. "Long-Term Effects of Equal Sharing: Evidence from Inheritance Rules for Land," IZA Discussion Papers 13665, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Cong Minh Huynh & Nam Hoai Tran, 2023. "Financial development, income inequality, and institutional quality: A multi-dimensional analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2242128-224, June.
    17. Falkinger, Josef & Grossmann, Volker, 2013. "Oligarchic land ownership, entrepreneurship, and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 206-215.
    18. Jung, Samuel Moon & Vijverberg, Chu-Ping C., 2019. "Financial development and income inequality in China – A spatial data analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 295-320.
    19. Muhammad Shahbaz & Mita Bhattacharya & Mantu Kumar Mahalik, 2017. "Finance and income inequality in Kazakhstan: evidence since transition with policy suggestions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(52), pages 5337-5351, November.
    20. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i::p:s111-s137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iariwea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.