Growing Up Together: Sibling Correlation, Parental Influence, and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Developing Countries

59 Pages Posted: 1 Jul 2022 Last revised: 8 Jan 2024

See all articles by Md Nazmul Ahsan

Md Nazmul Ahsan

Washington University in St. Louis - Department of Economics

M. Shahe Emran

George Washington University - Department of Economics

Hanchen Jiang

University of North Texas - Department of Economics

Qingyang Han

Johns Hopkins University

Forhad Shilpi

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

Date Written: June 27, 2022

Abstract

This paper presents credible and comparable evidence on intergenerational educational mobility in 53 developing countries using sibling correlation as a measure, and data from 230 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys. It is the first paper to provide estimates of sibling correlation in schooling for a large number of developing countries using high quality standardized data. Sibling correlation is an omnibus measure of mobility as it captures observed and unobserved family and neighborhood factors shared by siblings when growing up together. The estimates suggest that sibling correlation in schooling in developing countries is much higher (average 0.59) than that in developed countries (average 0.41). There is substantial spatial heterogeneity across regions, with Latin America and Caribbean having the highest (0.65) and Europe and Central Asia the lowest (0.48) estimates. Country level heterogeneity within a region is more pronounced. The evolution of sibling correlation suggests a variety of mobility experiences, with some regions registering a monotonically declining trend from the 1970s birth cohort to the 1990s birth cohort (Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia and Pacific), while others remained trapped in stagnancy (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). The only region that experienced monotonically increasing sibling correlation is the Middle East and North Africa. The recent approach of Bingley and Cappellari (2019) is used to estimate the share of sibling correlation due to intergenerational transmission. The estimates show that when the homogeneity and independence assumptions implicit in the standard model of intergenerational transmission are relaxed, the estimated share is much larger. In the sample of countries, on average 74 percent of sibling correlation can be attributed to intergenerational transmission, while there are some countries where the share is more than 80 percent (most in Sub-Saharan Africa). This suggests a dominant role for parents in determining the educational opportunities of their children. Evidence on the evolution of the intergenerational share, however, suggests a declining importance of the intergenerational transmission component in many countries, but the pattern is diverse. In some cases, the trend in the intergenerational share is opposite to the trend in sibling correlation.

Keywords: Sibling Correlation, Intergenerational Mobility, Education, Years of Schooling, Developing Countries, Intergenerational Share, Decomposition, DHS

JEL Classification: J0, D3, J62

Suggested Citation

Ahsan, Md Nazmul and Emran, M. Shahe and Jiang, Hanchen and Han, Qingyang and Shilpi, Forhad, Growing Up Together: Sibling Correlation, Parental Influence, and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Developing Countries (June 27, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4148659 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4148659

Md Nazmul Ahsan

Washington University in St. Louis - Department of Economics ( email )

One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
United States

M. Shahe Emran

George Washington University - Department of Economics ( email )

2115 G Street NW
302 Monroe Hall
Washington, DC 20052
United States

Hanchen Jiang (Contact Author)

University of North Texas - Department of Economics ( email )

Denton, TX 76203-1457
United States

Qingyang Han

Johns Hopkins University ( email )

Baltimore, MD 20036-1984
United States

Forhad Shilpi

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG) ( email )

1818 H. Street, N.W.
MSN3-311
Washington, DC 20433
United States
202-458-7476 (Phone)
202-522-1151 (Fax)

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