Research Findings

In recent decades, terms such as “meritocracy” and “equality of opportunities” have gained significant political and social traction, while the globe has experienced recurring economic and social crises that widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Amid this growing inequality, one must question whether true social mobility still exists. Can today’s youth, regardless of their background, genuinely aspire to climb the economic ladder, or are they bound by the socioeconomic status they were born into?

Our recent study represents a significant advance in the understanding of intergenerational mobility in terms of income, education, and occupation in five African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria. In the most economically advanced societies, research has explored the transmission of socio-economic status from parents to children for years. However, in other areas, such as Africa, the reality of social mobility is more complex. Despite impressive economic growth in many countries, extreme inequality, underfunded education systems, and the dominance of informal economies act as powerful barriers, preventing many from accessing the opportunities necessary to improve their socioeconomic standing. This has not been given the necessary attention, mostly due to data limitations.

To fill this gap, we use a data imputation technique to create a comprehensive database of socioeconomic variables. Specifically, to impute missing values and to improve the analysis quality, we used different strategies such as mean, median, mode, or more advanced models. With the use of this data imputation methodology, we are the first to create a unique database with complete information on education, occupation, and wages for four of these five African countries. In the case of Uganda, we have achieved a sufficient sample only for the education domain.

Our findings show low levels of social mobility, even in the face of an educational system that produces enables children exceed their parents’ attainments. Once on the labor market, educational mobility does not translate to occupation and income mobility for children. In defiance of the theory of equal opportunities, circumstances beyond individuals’ control, such as family, gender, race, or place of birth, significantly affect their life chances, even as some perform well in the educational system.  

While overall social mobility is low, we find some regional differences. Ethiopia stands out as an encouraging case, with many children achieving higher levels of education and income than their parents. However, this progress is not replicated in the occupational sphere. In other words, despite higher earnings, many individuals remain in the same types of jobs as their parents.  This could indicate the presence of structural barriers—such as restricted access to quality education or limited professional development opportunities—that hinder upward occupational mobility. Alternatively, it may also reflect improvements in wages within certain sectors, allowing individuals to achieve higher incomes without necessarily transitioning to different occupations.

Yet Ethiopia remains the exception. In Nigeria, Uganda, and Malawi, many children “only” maintain the same level of education as their parents. This situation becomes alarming when considering that close to 80% of parents in these countries have low (in essence, elementary education) or no education at all. This pattern suggests an intergenerational transmission of low levels of education that perpetuates the lack of mobility in these societies. We find similar patterns regarding occupational and income mobility in these countries.

Although our data does not allow us to test why differences emerge between countries, we speculate that better social mobility chances in Ethiopia (compared to Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda) can be attributed to specific programs to improve access to education, resulting in sustained economic growth in recent years.

Social mobility is one of the fundamental pillars for the progress and development of societies. Yet, analyses of mobility in African nations remains largely unexplored (as is the case of occupational or income mobility in these countries). By considering both occupational and income transmission, this analysis offers a more complete view of intergenerational socioeconomic dynamics, allowing us to see the levels of social mobility relative to fathers and mothers separately. In this regard, while education transmission is similar for both parents, occupational and income mobility is higher relative to mothers, suggesting weaker transmission and greater room for upward mobility. These findings provide a basis for formulating more effective policies to address socioeconomic disparities and foster upward mobility in these African communities.

Despite possible educational advances, occupational and income mobility remain stagnant, presenting persistent challenges to social and economic progress. This is also happening in Western economies, although at different levels. The estimated econometric models and their results reflect the availability of family resources and the decisions these families must make in a challenging socioeconomic context. In many cases, economic constraints force children to work instead of attending school, perpetuating a cycle of stagnating social mobility.

Also, the root of this problem goes beyond lack of access to resources; it is intertwined with limited awareness of the benefits of education and immediate economic needs. Overcoming these challenges will require comprehensive strategies that address both the structural barriers and cultural challenges embedded in these societies. Promoting a shift in the perception of education as an engine of progress and dismantling the economic constraints that perpetuate the lack of social mobility.

Authors:

Claudia Suárez-Arbesú is a predoctoral researcher at the University of Oviedo, where she is working on her thesis on social mobility, focusing her research on inequality and development economics.

María Rosalía Vicente is Full Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Oviedo. She works on the analysis of socioeconomic inequalities with major attention to digital divides.

Ana Jesús López is Full Professor of Statistics and Econometrics at the University of Oviedo. She works on the analysis of inequality and poverty and has supervised several doctoral theses in this field.

Read more:

Suárez-Arbesú, C., Vicente, M. R., & López-Menéndez, A. J. (2024). An approach to social mobility in African countries: Is there a transmission of education, occupation, or income from parents to children? Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 90, 100893. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2024.100893

Image: astrid westvang via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Good, the Bad, and the Gig Economy

There are good jobs, which have fair wages, security, and a career ladder. There are bad jobs, which have none of these. 

And then there are “good bad jobs,” otherwise known as gig work.

Not long ago, labor scholars and activists fastened on Walmart’s labor practices as providing the most influential template for the “low road” approach toward employment generally. Since then, Amazon has in many ways surpassed Walmart, overtaking it in many retail markets, and bringing into play a whole new set of labor practices, many of which are equipped with powerful digital surveillance tools. This raises the question: What, precisely, do we know about the labor control mechanisms that workers encounter in Amazon’s warehouses? Despite journalistic forays and scattered but growing academic research, we have only a faint and tenuous outline of the company’s managerial regime, and of the workers’ responses to it.[1]

Imagine a small, rustic distillery tucked away in Utah’s Uinta mountains. The air is crisp with hints of fermenting grain and aging whiskey. Inside, a dedicated artisan tends to the copper still, crafting small batches of handmade spirits with care. Each bottle reflects the maker’s dedication and knowledge of the land.

This romantic image is likely what comes to mind when we hear “craft spirits.” We envision devoted producers pursuing their passion for making unique, quality products that stand in contrast to those mass-produced by big-name brands. It’s no wonder, then, that the craft spirits industry has seen such impressive growth in recent years.

But how accurately does this idealized image reflect the reality experienced by craft distillers? In a recent study, forthcoming in Qualitative Sociology, my colleague Eylül Yel and I shed new light on this question, revealing a landscape far more complex than this idealized vision suggests.

When I asked a Latin American street vendor in NYC if he has free time, he replied: “For what? This is my freedom, work is freedom. This is fun for me. Some people may pass by and think, ‘poor man selling churros in the street in such a cold weather’, but I do not feel like that, I feel good, I make money.”

Precarious work has increased globally in recent decades, influencing workers’ perceptions of their jobs. A defining feature of precarious work is the combination of bad working conditions with greater autonomy and flexibility. As a result, workers from various sectors, including freelance workers, platform workers, entrepreneurs, and street vendors highlight the benefits of working for themselves.

Interracial solidarity – the willingness of white workers to unite with racialized others, especially Black people, against capital – is a question that has haunted the institutionalized U.S. labor movement from its birth in the 1860s to the present day. We need only look to the white working class voters who support Donald Trump for just one example of this persistent challenge.

Unfortunately, the existing research is ill-equipped to explain the conditions that enable and constrain interracial labor solidarity. The relevant scholarly debate turns on an either/or question: did organized labor in the United States exclude or protect Black labor? On one side, scholars emphasize unions’ racially exclusionary practices. On the other side, scholars have focused on how some unions were largely inclusive. As readers, we are meant to make three inferences. First, while conservative whites were certainly racist, progressive whites recognized Black workers as their equals. Second, U.S. labor history’s protagonists were whites, while Black people were the passive beneficiaries or victims of white workers. Third, white progressives’ class analysis of capitalism was correct: employers do use racism to divide and weaken the working class.

Lots of media attention addresses the payment of subminimum wages to workers with disabilities employed in segregated workshops. In 2009, an Iowa Turkey farm was exposed for keeping dozens of men with intellectual disabilities in captivity for over thirty years, paying them $65 per month for decades of full-time manual labor. But a new study shows that programs trying to raise wages for workers with disabilities still place many in precarious, low-wage jobs due to the constraints of American disability policy.

For the past decade, major technology companies have grappled with the underrepresentation of women in their industry, especially in technical roles like software engineering. Much of the conversation surrounding gender inequality in the tech industry focuses on the educational pipeline: specifically, the relatively low proportions of women graduating with computer science degrees.

In a new article in the American Journal of Sociology, I argue that women are not only underrepresented in these technical roles because they lack educational credentials but because they are not given the same opportunities as men to learn relevant skills on the job.