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Improving early child development outcomes in low-income settingsImproving early child development outcomes in low-income settings requires affordable, sustainable, and easily scalable solutions. The “First Steps”...
This project looks at what we know about social mobility in developing countries, and works to conceptualize and innovate methodology to further research on this topic.
Social mobility — defined as the ability to move from a lower to a higher level of education or occupational status, or from a lower to a higher social class or income-group — is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society.
Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility, especially in the developing world, as reflected in recent authoritative reports from the OECD and the World Bank. However, efforts to construct the databases in developing countries and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are, still, at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative conceptual and methodological advances to convincingly study a phenomenon of great contemporary importance.
Key questions
- How does one assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets required by conventional measurement techniques are limited in availability?
- What do we know about the patterns of social mobility across the developing world? Which countries have done particularly well in social mobility and which countries have lagged behind?
- How does one reliably identify the drivers and the inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts?
- How does one acquire the knowledge required to design interventions that are likely to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?
Watch this space
All papers, data, opinion pieces and opportunities to engage relating to this project will be available on this web page. An important initial outcome of the project will be a state-of-the-art monograph on concepts, measures and determinants of social mobility in developing countries, with contributions from leading scholars in economics, anthropology, sociology, economic history and political science.
UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The project centrally addresses SDG 10, especially how to ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome.
TEAM
Focal point: Kunal Sen and Maria Lo Bue
External focal points: Anirudh Krishna and Vegard Iversen
Project support: Tram Nguyen
Communications: Timothy Shipp
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Working Paper
Degrees of disadvantageThis study is positioned in two strands of literature—intersectionality and social mobility. It is the first to measure (dis)advantage at the individual level as an outcome of the intersectionality of identities and parental circumstances. By linking...
Working Paper
Barriers or catalysts? Traditional institutions and social mobility in rural IndiaWe examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. We distinguish between upper caste and own-group dominance and...
Journal Article
Improving parenting practices for early child developmentThis study investigates the short- and medium-term impact of a randomized group-based early child development program targeting parents of children aged 6–24 months in a poor, rural district of Rwanda. This low-intensity, short-duration, and low-cost...
Journal Article
Multigenerational mobility among males in IndiaMost studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility...
Blog
Social mobility among disadvantaged groups in IndiaIn recent decades, India has experienced rapid economic growth alongside radical affirmative action programs enacted since independence. This column...
Working Paper
Foreign aid and intergenerational mobility in AfricaWhile there is extensive literature examining the growth and development effects of foreign aid, very little attention has been paid to its potential impact on social mobility. Thus, this paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of...
Blog
Reducing inequality — the great challenge of our time
Early in October 2022, international and Colombian researchers gathered together for three days at the UNIANDES campus, located at the foot of the...
Blog
Report from the WIDER Development Conference on reducing inequality
For several decades, UNU-WIDER has actively worked on pathfinding and groundbreaking research on inequalities. We host one of the most extensive...
Blog
Urban poverty: cities, slums, and the need for policy actionDeveloping countries will be predominantly urban by 2030. While urbanization is historically associated with development and broad-based social...
Research Brief
Three key insights for research on social mobility in developing countriesThe volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods, and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from a range of social science disciplines working on a variety of issues related to social mobility. Three motivations guide...
Blog
Advancing social mobility research: Where to start
Innovation in academic investigation and policy response is critical to addressing global challenges. That is why the most recent Nobel Prize in...
Journal Article
Decomposing learning inequalities in East AfricaInequalities in learning opportunities arise from both household- and school-related factors. Although these factors are unlikely to be independent, few studies have considered the extent to which sorting between schools and households might...
Working Paper
Whose intergenerational mobility?Various scholars have estimated levels of intergenerational mobility in OECD countries. Fewer estimates are available for developing countries, where mobility arguably matters more due to starker differences in living standards. This paper presents...
Blog
Dual learning disadvantages in East Africa: And how to deal with them
Children from poorer families in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda face a double disadvantage in their opportunity to access learning: not only is the...
Research Brief
What do we need to know about social mobility in the Global South?The volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from several disciplines to advance research practice on social mobility. Three sets of motivations guide this joint effort...
Policy Brief
Six sets of policy actions to promote social mobilityPromoting social mobility is an essential task of development, and a multi-faceted one. Precarious livelihoods are widespread. Containing downward mobility is an important precondition for sustaining upward mobility. Policies of human capital...
Displaying 48 of 93 results
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Theme: 2019-23, Transforming societies