Intergenerational mobility in educational attainments: A comparative analysis at provincial level of Pakistan

Skills and talents of the poor are wasted due to persistence in socio-economic status. Consequently, their incentives to work hard decrease, and their current and future generations remain backward. We use education level as a proxy of socio-economic status and investigate its mobility across the generations in four provinces of Pakistan. Data reveal that the percentage of fathers is greater in the lower education level than their sons in all four provinces. Transition matrices and multinomial logit models indicate strong persistence in educational status along with upward mobility. Sons of less-educated fathers are less likely to attain high education levels than the sons of high-educated fathers. Further, the probability of achieving high education levels increases with the increase in income and wealth. Also, large family size is a hurdle in attaining high education levels and increases the chances of achieving a low education level or never attending school.