Data Project 1: Inter-generational Education Mobility

When I was growing up, my parents made sure that I knew the importance of a good education. They were the first in their family to attend college and, thanks to their education, managed to provide my siblings and I with a better life. My parents broke out of the poverty cycle. However, not everyone is as lucky we are.

One underlying reason behind poverty is the existence of something known as the Cycle of Poverty. Simply put, people living below the poverty line lack the necessary financial or social resources to break out of the cycle, therefore their children cannot get access to a good education and grow up to continue living below the poverty line. This cycle goes on and on, unless intervened upon.

One way to break this poverty cycle is through education. Receiving a better education suggests learning better skills, which may lead to better jobs, a better living, and a better education for the next generation. This is the idea behind inter-generational education mobility; being born to parents of low education levels should not dictate one's educational opportunities.

I collected data from the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development to try and understand how several countries fare in terms of inter-generational education mobility, as seen below.

The values above represent the percentage of people in each parental category who reach certain education levels. For example, for adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in Australia whose parents never attained an upper secondary education, 37% never attained an upper secondary education, while 38% attained an upper secondary and post-secondary education and 25% attained a tertiary education.

First, I chose to focus my exploration of the data on a specific population, namely, adults between the ages of 25 and 44 years old whose parents are of the lowest educational category (below upper secondary education).

Below is a map of these countries and what percentage of the specific population I outlined above managed to receive an education at a higher level than their parents.

Take South Korea, for example. 93% of people whose parents never attained an upper secondary education managed to break out of this cycle. This is the highest number out of all the countries whose data we observed. Compare that to the United States and Italy, where the numbers are much lower at 66% and 32%, respectively.

One reason behind South Korea's success may be their culture of education success and the pressure to achieve, which some may argue have even cause over-investment in educational programs. Furthermore, South Korea spends approximately 6.3% of their GDP on education, compared to the United States' 3.5% and Italy's 3.83%.

Next, I also wanted to look at how inter-generational education mobility has improved. I looked at adults between the ages of 25 and 64 years old and those between the ages of 25 and 44 years old whose parents never attained an upper secondary education. Let us call these populations A and B, respectively. The percentage mobility of population A would be more representative of changes in the past, while the percentage mobility of population B would be more representative of changes we see in more recent time.

I compared the inter-generational education upwards mobility of the past and that of more recent time and charted below the percentage change of mobility between population A to B. A positive percentage change on the chart below would suggest that that particular country is seeing improved upwards mobility in recent years. In addition, I also incorporated economic categorizations from the International Monetary Fund to observe the mix between advanced and developing economies in our data.

Again, we notice that South Korea has come out on top. In the past, their upwards mobility was at a 71%, but in recent years it has shot up to 93%, which indicate a 23.66% increase in upwards inter-generational educational mobility. Even developing economies like Chile, Poland, and Turkey are seeing improvements in their numbers. It is concerning and disheartening to see that developed economies like Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the United States have seen large drops in mobility.

Of course, there are several possible reasons behind these educational successes and failures. Turkey, for example, is seeing significant improvement in its numbers, partly thanks to theirimplementation of the Basic Education Programme in 1997, in coordination with the World Bank. Germany, on the other hand, is seeing their numbers worsen. Some attribute this to their child care policies, education track system, and inequitable taxation policy, factors that are also present in the United States.

Finally, I decided to also obesrve the gender gap in inter-generational education mobility. Does one gender experience better inter-generational upwards education mobility than the other?

I compared the inter-generational upwards education mobility of women and that of men and charted below the percentage change of mobility between the two. A positive percentage change on the chart below would suggest that men are seeing more upwards mobility than women in that particular country.

It is quite obvious that in most of the countries we observed, women experience greater inter-generational upwards education mobility than men. The reason behind this is not clearly known, but I hypothesize that it might be due to the pressure that women face to perform well or the increased importance of women's education in recent decades.

Of course, there are limitations and concerns regarding our observations. The biggest (and perhaps most obvious) concern is that our data is very limited. We didn't even have any data on inter-generational education mobility in Africa. It would be beneficial to have data on all countries of the world to be able to more clearly compare and contrast numbers between countries.

Another concern is one regarding the true impact of education on poverty, as well as the true impact of poverty on education attainment. There are many reasons one may get trapped in the poverty cycle and there are many reasons behind one's educational attainment, reasons other than education or poverty. These include life shocks, disaster, culture of poverty, and health issues, among other reasons. For example, someone who is chronically ill may not be able to attain an education higher than secondary-level education, no matter how accessible that education is. Someone who lacks access to affordable healthcare, no matter their education level, may fall into poverty.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that there is a time lag in the observations that we see today. These results we see are thanks to the conditions and interventions put in place 20 years ago, maybe more. It is unreasonable to expect immediate, major changes to manifest in the short span of 5 years. Let us continue to put resources towards policies that work, let us remember to look at the big picture, and let us keep fighting the good fight. The seeds that we plant today will reap returns in the years that are to come.