KISHAN PKV ^* Abhinav Rajverma

• Institute of Rural Management Anand, Anand, India

Intergenerational education mobility, the extent to which the educational achievements of individuals are independent of parents’ educational attainment, is crucial for ensuring equal opportunities in society. This study examines intergenerational education mobility in India and its various aspects by utilizing data from the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative multi-topic survey. Through analysis of intergenerational mobility across age cohorts in the sample, we find that although there is still a high degree of intergenerational persistence in education, it decreases steadily over time. Further, we investigate the nonlinearities in the intergenerational transmission of education and analyze the effect of educational inequality, economic growth, and public expenditure on education on education mobility. Employing quantile regressions, we uncover nonlinearity in the relationship between fathers’ and sons’ educational outcomes across the educational distribution. Our findings highlight a widening mobility gap between historically advantaged subgroups (urban populations, upper castes, Hindus) and disadvantaged groups (rural populations, lower castes, Muslims) at the middle and upper quantiles. Additionally, we confirm the “Higher Inequality leading to Lesser Mobility” nexus, supporting the ‘Great Gatsby Curve’ in the Indian context. Macroeconomic factors, such as economic growth and public expenditure on education, positively correlate with educational mobility. We also discuss the policy implications and avenues for future research.