Intergenerational social mobility in Mexico and its regions results from rank-rank regressions

Abstract

With data from the esru Social Mobility Survey (emovi) 2011 we run rank-rank regressions to estimaterelative and absolute upward intergenerational social mobility in the dimensions of wealth, education,and occupational status in Mexico at national and regional levels. For the case of wealth, the estimationsyield a clear regional pattern: the degree of social mobility is higher than the national average in theNorth and North-Central regions, similar to the national average in the Central region, and lower thanaverage in the South region. In particular, it is estimated that the children of poor parents (i.e. parents inthe 25th percentile rank in the national distribution of wealth of their generation) achieved greater thanaverage progress if they grew up in the North region, and smaller than average progress if they grew upin the South region. The same results are found for the case of education and occupational status.However, in general, the differences between regional estimates of absolute educational mobility are notstatistically significant; and the estimates of occupational mobility are not robust.