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Social Mobility in Five A frican Countries
Author(s) -
Bossuroy Thomas,
Cogneau Denis
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/roiw.12037
Subject(s) - dualism , social mobility , economics , reproduction , demographic economics , pace , occupational mobility , logit , labor mobility , labour economics , overtaking , economic geography , geography , sociology , econometrics , ecology , biology , social science , philosophy , geodesy , epistemology , civil engineering , engineering
This paper conceptualizes intergenerational occupational mobility between the farm and non‐farm sectors in five A frican countries, measures it using nationally representative household survey data, and analyzes its determinants through a comparative method based on pooled logit regressions. We first analyze intergenerational gross mobility. Until the end of the 1980s, intergenerational flows toward the non‐farm sector are high in C ôte d' I voire and G uinea, flows toward the farm sector are more often observed in G hana and U ganda, and M adagascar displays less mobility in either direction. The pace of change in occupational structures and the magnitude of labor income dualism between the farm and non‐farm sectors appear to explain those differences. We then net out structural change across generations and establish the first measurement of intergenerational net mobility in those five A frican countries. G hana and U ganda stand out as relatively more fluid societies. C ôte d' I voire and G uinea come next while M adagascar shows a particularly high reproduction of occupations. Educational mobility accounts for the M adagascar exception to a large extent, but not for the differences between the other countries. Spatial dualism of employment, i.e. the geographic segregation of farm and non‐farm jobs, accounts for most of those remaining differences. We argue that the main determinants of intergenerational mobility, namely income and employment dualisms, likely reflect a historical legacy of different colonial administrations.