Why the meritocracy is not so bad after all

Organised by

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

Educational expansion is often addressed as a channel through which intergenerational social mobility can be promoted. However, the level of social mobility in a society is a function of several processes, of which the equalization of educational opportunities through educational expansion is but one. I study long-term trends in 39 countries from Europe, North-America, Oceania, and Asia. By decomposing the intergenerational mobility process into various components, I analyze whether educational expansion improves social mobility through the education path of the Origin-Education-Destination triangle, and whether such trends are off-set by increased persistence between social origin and destination within education groups. Results show that educational expansion and policies to promote it are often associated with alleviated social mobility through education. Moreover, increased mobility through education is not off-set by a strengthening of the within-education persistence of occupational status, implying that social mobility patterns can really change through educational expansion. A more detailed analysis exploiting policies promoting educational expansion in European countries suggests that the effect of educational expansion on social mobility may be causal.