Shades of social mobility: Colorism, ethnic origin and intergenerational social mobility

In this paper, I study the difference in intergenerational mobility patterns between the indigenous and non-indigenous Mexican populations, analyzing the role played by the variability in skin tones inside both groups. I employ a composite sample based on two recent surveys with the same sampling frame and questionnaire design. I obtained three main results based on rank-rank regressions, transition matrices, and quantile rank regressions. First, the indigenous population faces a higher degree of intergenerational persistence and remains concentrated at the bottom of the distribution of economic resources. Secondly, the indigenous population faces less upward mobility from the bottom of the distribution but similar rates of persistence to the non-indigenous population at the top. Furthermore, there is a skin tone gradient for the indigenous and non-indigenous populations, where lighter skin tones tend to remain at a higher rank in the distribution of economic resources than darker skin tones.