Parents’ level of schooling affects that of their children, study shows

IMDS synthesizes the issue by saying that "the poor of today are the children of yesterday's poor." According to Estadão and data being compiled by economist Paulo Tafner, founder and CEO of the newly created Institute for Mobility and Social Development (IMDS), he reported that parents with no schooling have much less chance of having children who go on to higher education, only 4.7% manage to do so.

In a group of 100 people whose family members have no schooling whatsoever, 70 complete at most the lower secondary level and only between 4 and 5 (or 4.7%) complete higher education. But if parents are college graduates, the children are more likely to follow this path as well.

Last year (2019), one in four Brazilians lived on less than US$ 5 a day, which characterizes the condition of poverty. IMDS summarizes the problem by saying that "today's poor are the children of yesterday's poor."