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DUCATION AND
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OCIAL
M
OBILITY
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T
HE
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RITICAL
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OLE OF
H
IGH
S
CHOOL
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EARS
May 2017
Ashwini Deshpande
Delhi School of Economics; ashwini@econdse.org
The paper seeks to understand factors that account for differences in upward
social mobility for individuals from different social backgrounds. Higher
education could be an instrument to facilitate upward social mobility; however,
it is equally true that those who enter higher education are also those whose
parents are highly educated. Thus, higher education could actually account for
inter-generational persistence, rather than inter-generational mobility, i.e. it
might not facilitate individuals with poorly educated parents to attain higher
education and thus, reap the rewards in the labour market through better paying
jobs. This research seeks to understand how social identity (caste) and class
(economic status of the parents) affect the possibility of upward mobility, and
finds that high school performance plays a critical role in later life outcomes.
The extent to which individual chances of getting ahead and doing better than their parents are determined by effort and ability, i.e. if those who have what it takes can get ahead, regardless of the economic circumstances in which they were born, determines how fair societies are. The phrase “American Dream” came to encapsulate this notion of immense possibility of success based on hard work. However, today in most societies, including importantly in the US, family background is likely to play a bigger role in determining adult outcomes, compared to their own hard work.
The issue of what determines social mobility – circumstances, effort and/or sheer good luck – remains the central question of interest in studies of social mobility. ‘Circumstance’ is a broad term that refers to how class, caste, race, gender or other social identities affect one’s chances of getting ahead.
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This paper explores determinants of social mobility through a comparison of interpersonal mobility. Using data from a unique primary retrospective survey conducted by the author in city of Delhi in India, this paper attempts to account for the divergence in educational and occupational outcomes of a group of men who have relatively similar starting positions by trying to disentangle the intertwined influence of caste, class and family background in their differential educational and occupational trajectories. The men are similar in their starting positions in the following sense: all the men have completed higher secondary schooling (Class XII), thus are eligible to enter higher education if they choose to; all the men have studied in the same city, under the same educational board, in government schools. These highly controlled circumstances represent but one slice of Indian society; however, a focus on this slice allows us to delineate the role of different facets of the individuals’ social identity, such as class and caste. Additionally, through detailed questions not normally included in publicly available sample surveys, this paper also attempts to identify some of the pathways and mechanisms through which these factors impact adult life outcomes.
I find clear caste-religious differences in average years of education, which suggests that social identity does matter in terms of who studies how far. However, after accounting for differences in Class XII scores, the differences among caste groups almost disappear. Looking at occupational attainment, the socially highest ranked caste group, the Brahmins, are more likely to be in the top occupational categories, compared to the lowest-ranked Dalits and middle castes, but the inter-caste differences are muted once we take into account differential years of education. However, estimates of average salary reveal that Brahmins earn significantly higher salaries compared to Dalits, middle castes and Muslims, and these gaps remain even education differences have been accounted for. Estimating the labour market premium of college education, we find that indeed, higher education confers a substantial premium via higher monthly salary, but that this premium varies by caste. It is the highest for Brahmins, and compared to them, the lowest-ranked Dalits, middle-castes and Muslims earn a significantly lower premium. Since Class XII scores explain some of the inter-caste differences, an examination of the determinants of Class XII scores reveals that overall, richer respondents, with better-educated fathers, who opt for Science and Mathematics subjects in high school have higher scores. The key inter-caste difference in test scores is between the highest-ranked Brahmins and the lowest-ranked Dalits.
Class or Caste?
Given the high overlap between caste and socio-economic disadvantage, there is always the question about whether, and to what extent, what is being captured is class or caste. The paper examines the caste-class conundrum by focusing on the probability of the poor, across all caste groups, of getting good jobs. Poor Brahmins have greater odds of finding a good job compared to poor Dalits. Also, whether the effect that we see is ability, as expressed through Class XII scores or caste, can be gauged by focusing on inter-caste differences among the high scoring respondents, which reveals that high scoring Brahmin respondents have better outcomes than high scoring Dalit respondents. Overall, caste continues to mediate the possibility of upward mobility, with upper castes, particularly Brahmins, more likely to be upwardly mobile than Dalits and middle-castes
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A great deal of focus in education policy is targeted either towards early education – primary school enrolment, universal access and so on, or towards higher education. Attention to both these ends of the educational spectrum is absolutely necessary. But research on the critical role of high school years is practically non-existent. This paper highlights the lasting effects of the end-of-school Class Xll examination results in mediating further education and occupational outcomes. The major policy implication is that academic support and remedial interventions (e.g. remedial classes in Mathematics and Science subjects) at this stage would help in equalising opportunities for later life outcomes.
Given that longitudinal data were not available at the time this research was conceived of, I decided to conduct a retrospective survey, which I call the Education and Social Mobility Survey, 2014-15 (ESM, hereafter). I contacted individuals who completed Class XII in 2003. Thus, these were interviewed 11-12 years after they had completed high school. We administered a retrospective survey, which traced their educational and occupational paths since graduating from high school. The questionnaire also contained detailed information about the occupational and educational background of family members (parents, siblings, wives, close relatives, close friends), assets, networks, and for those who were eligible, information about their use of affirmative action, i.e. education or job quotas or both.
The choice of the “starting position” for this exercise is unusual and deliberate. The 2011 census figures reveal that only 18 percent of individuals in the 20-24 years age group have completed Class XII1; for the rest, opportunities for upward mobility through higher education are already non-existent, as completing Class XII constitutes the minimum eligibility for entering higher education. Class XII completion rates differ by caste: my estimates based on the 2011-12 unit level NSS Employment- Unemployment Survey (EUS) data show that of those who complete Class XII, 41.5 percent are largely so-called upper-caste, 41 percent middle castes, 18 percent lower-castes and tribals. These represent 9, 6, and 8 percent of these groups respectively. Despite being a small percentage of their respective caste groups, in order to examine the role of higher education as a factor contributing to social mobility, this is the natural subset of the population to focus on.
I deliberately chose one city – Delhi, and one type of school – government schools, where students study a standard curriculum prescribed by one educational board2, in order to equalize some of the key starting conditions of individuals as they become eligible for entry into higher education. We located our respondents through a somewhat lengthy process. We first contacted government schools for details of the graduating batch of 2003. On the basis of the addresses provided by the school, my team
1
Calculated on the basis of data from Table DDW-0000C-08.xlxs, obtained at http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-series/C08.html
2
There are several educational boards, each with a distinct curriculum and graduating exam, and schools have to adhere to one board. The difficulty level of the curriculum differs varies by the educational board, and thus, students’ scores and knowledge is likely to differ by the board under which they graduated. These schools are under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
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of research assistants tried to track them down. Ideally, I would have liked to have both men and women in the sample. However, given the low age of marriage in India, especially for women, the likelihood of women being married and thus having moved out of their parental home was very high. It would be close to impossible to get contact information for women after they had moved to their marital home. Thus, I had to focus on men, but that choice added yet another dimension of homogeneity to the sample. Given that these individuals were contacted in 2014-15, they had been out of high school for 11-12 years, with different trajectories of higher education and labour market experiences. The focus of the analysis is to identify factors that would account for the divergent trajectories.
Azam, Mehtabul & Vipul Bhatt, 2015. "Like Father, Like Son? Intergenerational Educational Mobility
in India," Demography, Springer; Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages
1929-1959, December.
Corak, Miles. 2013. “Income inequality, equality of opportunity and intergenerational mobility”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 27, No.3, pp. 79-102
Deshpande, Rajeshwari and Suhas Palshikar. 2008. “Occupational Mobility: how much does caste matter?”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 34, pp. 61-70
Iversen, Vegard, Anirudh Krishna and Kunal Sen. 2016. “Rags to Riches? Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in India”, GDI Working Paper 2016-004, Manchester, The University of Manchester.
Krishna, Anirudh. 2013. “Making It In India: Examining Social Mobility in Three Walks of Life”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVIII, No.49, pp. 38-49
Motiram, Sripad and Ashish Singh. 2012. “How Close Does the Apple Fall to the Tree: Some evidence from India on intergenerational occupational mobility”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII, No. 40, pp. 56-65
Vaid, Divya and Anthony Heath. 2014 “Unequal Opportunities: Class, Caste and Social Mobility”, in Anthony Heath and Roger Jeffery (ed.) “Diversity and Change in Modern India: Economic, Social and Political Approaches”, British Academy Publications.
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PROJECT NAME NOPOOR – Enhancing Knowledge for Renewed Policies against Poverty COORDINATOR Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Paris, France
CONSORTIUM CDD The Ghana Center for Democratic Development – Accra, Ghana
CDE Centre for Development Economics – Delhi, India
CNRS (India Unit) Centre de Sciences Humaines – New Delhi, India
CRES Consortium pour la Recherche Èconomique et Sociale – Dakar, Senegal GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies – Hamburg, Germany GRADE Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo – Lima, Peru
IfW Kiel Institute for the World Economy – Kiel, Germany IRD Institut de Recherche pour le Développement – Paris, France
ITESM Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey – Monterrey, Mexico LISER Luxemburg Institute of Socio-Economic Research – Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg OIKODROM - The Vienna Institute for Urban Sustainability – Vienna, Austria
UA-CEE Université d’Antananarivo – Antananarivo, Madagascar UAM Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – Madrid, Spain UCHILE Universidad de Chile – Santiago de Chile, Chile
UCT–SALDRU University of Cape Town – Cape Town, South Africa UFRJ Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil UNAMUR Université de Namur – Namur, Belgium
UOXF-CSAE University of Oxford, Centre for the Study of African Economies – Oxford, United Kingdom
VASS Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences – Hanoi, Vietnam
FUNDING SCHEME FP7 Framework Programme for Research of the European Union –SSH.2011.4.1-1: Tackling poverty in a development context, Collaborative project/Specific International Cooperation Action. Grant Agreement No. 290752
DURATION April 2012 – September 2017 (66 months)
BUDGET EU contribution: 8 000 000 €
WEBSITE http://www.nopoor.eu/
FOR MORE
INFORMATION Xavier Oudin, Scientific coordinator, IRD-DIAL, Paris, France, Delia Visan, Manager, IRD-DIAL, Paris, France delia.visan@ird.fr oudin@dial.prd.fr
Tel: +33 1 53 24 14 66 Contact email address: info@nopoor.eu
EDITORIAL TEAM
Edgar Aragon, Laura Valadez (ITESM) Heidi Dumreicher (OIKODROM)
Anne-Sophie Robilliard (IRD-DIAL), Hélène Lenoble (Paris-Dauphine-DIAL)
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the European Commission.
