How to promote relative and absolute educational intergenerational mobility? A global study based on interpretable machine learning

Abstract

Educational intergenerational mobility includes two dimensions: relative and absolute, reflecting the degree of intergenerational dependence and the probability of upward mobility, respectively. Drawing on the World Bank's Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility and related macro-level statistics, this study employs interpretable machine learning methods to comparatively analyze the predictors of both mobility types across four dimensions: economic development, public education provision, parental human capital, and gender culture. The results reveal a significant divergence in the driving mechanisms of the two mobility types. Relative mobility is most strongly influenced by parental human capital, whereas absolute mobility relies more heavily on economic development, with the role of gender culture notably rising. Moreover, core variables exhibit nonlinear relationships with intergenerational mobility, including the logarithmic pattern of GDP per capita, the threshold effect of the share of public education expenditure, and the inverted V-shaped pattern of paternal education inequality. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of parental roles on intergenerational mobility varies by offspring gender, and gender culture plays a prominent role in enhancing the absolute mobility of daughters. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the differentiated mechanisms driving relative and absolute intergenerational educational mobility.