Intergenerational Mobility in Occupational Status

Malik Muhammad and Muhammad Jamil

Abstract

Persistence in socio-economic status causes inequalities and misallocation of talent and skills. As a result, both fathers’ as well as sons’ generations experience backwardness and country experiences inequality, poverty and slow economic growth. We used the occupation as a proxy for socio-economic status and investigated intergenerational occupational mobility in Pakistan. We utilized data set of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurements (PSLM-2012-13) for our analysis. Results of transition matrices and multinomial logit show a strong persistence in occupational status. While persistence is stronger in the higher status occupations in urban regions, it is stronger in the lower status occupations in rural regions. Opportunities are not open equally for rich and poor. There are limited chances for the sons whose fathers are in lower status occupations to move to the higher status occupations as compared to those whose fathers are in high status occupations. Moreover, while sons of “Clerks” are more mobile towards higher status occupations in urban regions, they are more mobile towards the lower status occupations in the rural regions. Similarly, more downward mobility is observed for the sons of “Technicians and Associate Professionals” and “Professionals” towards the “Skilled Agricultural and Fishery Workers” in the rural regions. Increase in human capital, experience in the job market and income and wealth of a father are found to be important determinants of occupational status of a son.