Intergenerational Education Mobility and Globalization: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

The issue of economic mobility among generations continues to be one of the understudied areas, especially in developing countries. Economic mobility usually referred to as Intergenerational Mobility (IM) studies the movement of individuals along the economic ladder. This paper relied on intergenerational education mobility to study into economic mobility in the Ghanaian setting. The paper, therefore, contributes to rarer existing literature on IGM in Ghana. Relying on random and fixed effect regression models, the study reveals that, economic mobility in Ghana is one of the lowest in the world far below economic mobility in countries like Turkey and Italy and far below economic mobility in developed countries like the US. The paper further reveals the significant role of globalization on IGM, highlighting a very important role of globalization in the lives of people. It is therefore recommended that to bolster the welfare of individuals, policymakers need to consider policies that are also aimed at expanding globalization. Moreover, the paper reveals that FDI and expansionary fiscal policy plays crucial roles in the economic mobility of individuals while unemployment has an exactly opposite effect on IGM.