Open AccessHistorical Inequality and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: The Dynamics of Change in Rural Punjab
Author(s) -
Ali Cheema,
Muhammad Naseer
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the lahore journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1811-5446
pISSN - 1811-5438
DOI - 10.35536/lje.2013.v18.isp.a9
Subject(s) - social mobility , educational attainment , inequality , divergence (linguistics) , corporate governance , settlement (finance) , demographic economics , colonialism , independence (probability theory) , geography , development economics , economics , economic growth , socioeconomics , sociology , social science , mathematical analysis , mathematics , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , archaeology , finance , payment
We analyze educational attainment over three generations in ruralPunjab, Pakistan, to determine if the fruits of post-independence development havetranslated into comparable rates of educational and social opportunities for allstrata in the village economy. We show that the differences in class statusinstitutionalized at the time of colonial village settlement lead to a sustaineddivergence in the rate of intergenerational educational mobility, with limitedmobility for nonproprietary and marginalized groups compared to proprietarygroups. Inter-class differences in the rate of mobility are higher in proprietarylanded estates where the colonial state had concentrated land rights andgovernance in the hands of landowners compared to crown estates that had a moreegalitarian arrangement of land rights and governance. We find that thedivergence in inter-class mobility is worrying, so much so that the currentgeneration of marginalized households appears to have fallen a generation behindin terms of educational attainment, even though it resides in the same villages asthe proprietary households.