IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v195y2025ics0305750x25001998.html

Three-generation educational mobility in six African countries: The role of grandparents

Author

Listed:
  • Razzu, Giovanni
  • Wambile, Ayago

Abstract

Using nationally representative survey data, we provide estimate of three generation educational mobility in six African countries: Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. We explore whether the extent of educational mobility over three generations varies by gender and whether the grandparent’s influence differs depending on their residency status. Our findings indicate that grandparents play a significant role, and that intergenerational effects can persist beyond two generations in Africa. These effects are however one-fifth as strong as those observed between two generations. The grandparents influence is generally higher for granddaughters than grandsons and is stronger if grandparents live with their grandchildren than if they do not.

Suggested Citation

  • Razzu, Giovanni & Wambile, Ayago, 2025. "Three-generation educational mobility in six African countries: The role of grandparents," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:195:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25001998
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X25001998
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107114?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hällsten, Martin & Pfeffer, Fabian T., 2017. "Grand advantage: family wealth and grandchildren's educational achievement in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2017:3, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    2. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00859751 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Hertz, Tom, 2008. "A group-specific measure of intergenerational persistence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 415-417, September.
    4. Joseph Ferrie & Catherine Massey & Jonathan Rothbaum, 2021. "Do Grandparents Matter? Multigenerational Mobility in the United States, 1940–2015," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(3), pages 597-637.
    5. Braun, Sebastian Till & Stuhler, Jan, 2018. "The Transmission of Inequality Across Multiple Generations: Testing Recent Theories with Evidence from Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 128(609), pages 576-611.
    6. Robert Lucas & Sari Kerr, 2013. "Intergenerational income immobility in Finland: contrasting roles for parental earnings and family income," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1057-1094, July.
    7. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, January.
    8. Modalsli, Jørgen, 2015. "Estimating occupational mobility with covariates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 77-80.
    9. Stuhler, Jan, 2012. "Mobility Across Multiple Generations: The Iterated Regression Fallacy," IZA Discussion Papers 7072, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Xi Song & Robert D. Mare, 2017. "Short-Term and Long-Term Educational Mobility of Families: A Two-Sex Approach," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 145-173, February.
    11. Dribe, Martin & Helgertz, Jonas, 2016. "The Lasting Impact of Grandfathers: Class, Occupational Status, and Earnings over Three Generations in Sweden 1815–2011," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 969-1000, December.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12594 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Mehtabul Azam & Vipul Bhatt, 2015. "Like Father, Like Son? Intergenerational Educational Mobility in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages 1929-1959, December.
    14. Xi Song & Robert D. Mare, 2019. "Shared Lifetimes, Multigenerational Exposure, and Educational Mobility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 891-916, June.
    15. Anustup Kundu & Kunal Sen, 2023. "Multigenerational Mobility Among Males in India," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(2), pages 395-418, June.
    16. Behrman, Jere & Tarbman, Paul, 1985. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the United States: Some Estimates and a Test of Becker's Intergenerational Endowments Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 144-151, February.
    17. M. Anne Hill & June O'Neill, 1994. "Family Endowments and the Achievement of Young Children with Special Reference to the Underclass," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 1064-1100.
    18. Robert Hodge, 1966. "Occupational mobility as a probability process," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 3(1), pages 19-34, March.
    19. Thomas Bossuroy & Denis Cogneau, 2013. "Social Mobility in Five African Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 84-110, October.
    20. Hertz Tom & Jayasundera Tamara & Piraino Patrizio & Selcuk Sibel & Smith Nicole & Verashchagina Alina, 2008. "The Inheritance of Educational Inequality: International Comparisons and Fifty-Year Trends," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-48, January.
    21. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Piraino, Patrizio, 2015. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 396-405.
    23. repec:dbl:dblwop:1906 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Cheti Nicoletti & Marco Francesconi, 2006. "Intergenerational mobility and sample selection in short panels," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1265-1293.
    25. Peters, H Elizabeth, 1992. "Patterns of Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 456-466, August.
    26. Guido Neidhöfer & Maximilian Stockhausen, 2019. "Dynastic Inequality Compared: Multigenerational Mobility in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(2), pages 383-414, June.
    27. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    28. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2014. "Black–White Differences in Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the U.S," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q I.
    29. Robert Mare, 2011. "A Multigenerational View of Inequality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 1-23, February.
    30. Gavin W. Jones & Divya S. Ramchand, 2016. "Closing the Gender and Socio‐economic Gaps in Educational Attainment: a Need to Refocus," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 953-973, August.
    31. Alberto Alesina & Sebastian Hohmann & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 1-35, January.
    32. Zhen Zeng & Yu Xie, 2014. "The Effects of Grandparents on Children’s Schooling: Evidence From Rural China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 599-617, April.
    33. Pablo Celhay & Sebastian Gallegos, 2025. "Schooling mobility across three generations in six Latin American countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-35, March.
    34. Gregory Clark, 2015. "The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10181-2, December.
    35. Giovanni Razzu & Ayago Wambile, 2022. "Four Decades of Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(5), pages 931-950, May.
    36. Mikael Lindahl & Mårten Palme & Sofia Sandgren Massih & Anna Sjögren, 2015. "Long-Term Intergenerational Persistence of Human Capital: An Empirical Analysis of Four Generations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-33.
    37. Florencia Torche & Alejandro Corvalan, 2018. "Estimating Intergenerational Mobility With Grouped Data," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 47(4), pages 787-811, November.
    38. Théophile T. Azomahou & Eleni Yitbarek, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility in education: Is Africa different?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 503-523, July.
    39. Azomahou,Theophile T. & Yitbarek,Eleni Abraham, 2016. "Intergenerational education mobility in Africa : has progress been inclusive ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7843, The World Bank.
    40. van der Weide, Roy & Lakner, Christoph & Mahler, Daniel Gerszon & Narayan, Ambar & Gupta, Rakesh, 2024. "Intergenerational mobility around the world: A new database," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    41. Sebastian Till Braun & Jan Stuhler, 2018. "The Transmission of Inequality Across Multiple Generations: Testing Recent Theories with Evidence from Germany," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(609), pages 576-611, March.
    42. Neidhöfer, Guido & Serrano, Joaquín & Gasparini, Leonardo, 2018. "Educational inequality and intergenerational mobility in Latin America: A new database," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 329-349.
    43. Shahe Emran & Forhad Shilpi, 2019. "Economic approach to intergenerational mobility: Measures, methods, and challenges in developing countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-98, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    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. Nicola Branson & Emma Whitelaw, 2026. "Does government spending on education increase intergenerational education mobility?: The case of Free Compulsory Basic Education in Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2026-17, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Giovanni Razzu & Ayago Wambile, 2020. "Three-generation educational mobility in six African countries," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-23, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    2. Colagrossi, Marco & d’Hombres, Béatrice & Schnepf, Sylke V, 2020. "Like (grand)parent, like child? Multigenerational mobility across the EU," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    3. Pablo Celhay & Sebastian Gallegos, 2025. "Schooling mobility across three generations in six Latin American countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-35, March.
    4. Andrea Del Pizzo & Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2026. "Indirect Estimators of Intergenerational Mobility," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26137, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    5. Gary Solon, 2018. "What Do We Know So Far about Multigenerational Mobility?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 340-352, July.
    6. Jan Stuhler, 2024. "Multigenerational inequality," Chapters, in: Elina Kilpi-Jakonen & Jo Blanden & Jani Erola & Lindsey Macmillan (ed.), Research Handbook on Intergenerational Inequality, chapter 8, pages 100-121, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Kroeger, Sarah & Thompson, Owen, 2016. "Educational mobility across three generations of American women," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 72-86.
    8. Aydemir, Abdurrahman B. & Yazici, Hakki, 2019. "Intergenerational education mobility and the level of development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 160-185.
    9. Ahsan, Md. Nazmul & Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2025. "Making the most of coresident data: Credible evidence on intergenerational mobility with sibling correlation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    10. Bühler Jonas & Erhardt Tamara & Häner-Müller Melanie & Schaltegger Christoph A., 2025. "Ist Blut dicker als Wasser? Wie die Familie den sozialen Aufstieg beeinflusst," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 26(1), pages 62-79.
    11. Bhaskar Jyoti Neog, 2025. "Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in India: The Role of Gender and the Extended Family," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 37(4), pages 839-859, August.
    12. Sebastian Till Braun & Jan Stuhler, 2018. "The Transmission of Inequality Across Multiple Generations: Testing Recent Theories with Evidence from Germany," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(609), pages 576-611, March.
    13. Ian Lundberg, 2020. "Does Opportunity Skip Generations? Reassessing Evidence From Sibling and Cousin Correlations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1193-1213, August.
    14. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2019. "Steady-state assumptions in intergenerational mobility research," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(1), pages 77-97, March.
    16. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2025. "Is gender destiny? Gender bias and intergenerational educational mobility in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    17. Ahsan, Md Nazmul & Emran, M. Shahe & Mohammed, A. R. Shariq & Murphy, Orla A. & Shilpi, Forhad, 2025. "When Ranks Fail: New Evidence on Intergenerational Educational Mobility," MPRA Paper 127250, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Federičová, Miroslava & Pertold, Filip, 2025. "Multigenerational education mobility in Europe: Exploring the mechanism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Wei Zou & Ruiqi Ma, 2024. "An Extended Family Perspective on Intergenerational Human Capital Transmission in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1101-1139, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    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:eee:wdevel:v:195:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25001998. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    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.