Five years of evidence on educational mobility in Brazil

Indicator panel reveals that, despite educational advances, the level of education of parents still defines the future of their children

Hello *|NOME|*,

Intergenerational educational mobility expresses the possibility of children reaching higher – or lower – levels of education than that of their parents. This variation reveals how much family origin influences the opportunities of each generation and helps to understand the dynamics of social mobility in the country.

To deepen this discussion, in 2020, IMDS launched the indicator panel "Intragenerational Mobility: an analysis of life cycles (1996 and 2014)". The study aims to gather data that help to understand how social conditions are reproduced, or transformed, in Brazil. Five years later, with 22 different indicator panels, the dashboard remains a reference for those who seek to understand, in an accessible and interactive way, the relationship between education, income and opportunities.

The panel is part of a series of five installations that analyze the paths of social mobility on a national scale based on data collected by the IBGE, through the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD). Thus, these five sections are structured based on themes such as the correlation of schooling between parents and children, access to technology and housing conditions, for example. This was one of the starting points of our commitment to the method and technical rigor proposed by the institute.

Looking at two specific moments in time – 1996 and 2014 – this first panel enables the analysis of intragenerational mobility of the generations of the 1950s and 1960s. Thus, the data investigate the generation from the 1950s up to their 40 years of age (in 1996) and up to their 60 years (in 2014), as well as the generation from the 1960s up to their 30 years of age (in 1996) and up to their 50 years (in 2014). The tool allows clippings by time of birth, sex, skin color/race, region of the country or area of residence (rural or urban).

To analyze the educational levels of parents and their children, the panel selects five different categories: No education, Elementary school education, Complete Junior high school or Incomplete High school education, Complete High School or Incomplete Higher Education, and Complete Higher Education or more. The analysis is also divided into three different tables, in order to differentiate the availability of data into: percentage, number of individuals – obtained by the Social Mobility Supplement (1996) and Socio-Occupational Mobility Supplement (2014), provided by the PNAD of each respective year – and samples.

Since 1996, Brazil has advanced in high school education, but the educational heritage still weighs heavily. The panel's data show that, in general, the percentage of Brazilians with higher education doubled in this period – from 8.3% to 16%. Still, the chances of the offspring of parents with a college degree graduating from college in 2014 were nearly fifteen times higher than those coming from uneducated families. Among these, only 4.7% reached higher education that year, against 70% among the most educated. The numbers reveal great educational evolution, but not all of them have advanced at the same speed. Two decades of educational policies have expanded access to school but have not broken the strongest link in Brazilian social mobility: the education of the parents.

In addition, the persistence of the advantage among the most educated evidences the strength of the educational heritage in Brazil. Among the children of parents who had no education, the percentage of those who reached incomplete junior high school education fell from 58% to 46.5% in 2014. When we analyze this change among the children of parents who have completed higher education, for example, the percentage goes from 3.4 to 3.2. As much as the downward trend is the same, the rates of the first category are almost fifteen times greater than the second. The data suggest that, although the educational system has evolved, it still reproduces inequalities of origin.

These numbers help to measure how education, income and domestic infrastructure are articulated. More than a statistical basis, the Indicator Panel is an instrument of public analysis that continues to inspire studies, reports and policies aimed at social mobility. Since its publication in 2020, the panel has aroused the interest of researchers, managers, and media outlets, such as the newspaper "O Estado de S.Paulo", strengthening IMDS's presence in the public debate and expanding its contribution to the formulation of evidence-based policies.

Five years after its original publication, the indicator panel continues to fulfill its relevant role: to offer clear and comparable evidence for those who seek to understand the country's inequalities and the obstacles to social mobility based on data.

See you in the next "IMDS Letter"!

Paulo Tafner

CEO