Accounting for Intergenerational Social Immobility in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

This study investigates the transmission channels of intergenerational social immobility in developing countries. From rich longitudinal data elicited throughout children's childhood and youth, we extract latent factors of their development process. These factors comprise individual attributes as well as characteristics of children's environments. We decompose social immobility by analyzing the extent to which the different factors mediate the link between the socioeconomic statuses of parents and children. The findings indicate that relevant factors for the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status in developed countries - such as children's cognitive skills and aspirations - are also important in developing countries. Moreover, we confirm conjecture about the role of transmission channels that are specific to the developing country context, namely starting a family while underage and having to perform child labor. Other factors - most notably various non-cognitive skills - play no role.