Abstract:
We analyze educational attainment over three generations in rural
Punjab, Pakistan, to determine if the fruits of post-independence development have
translated into comparable rates of educational and social opportunities for all
strata in the village economy. We show that the differences in class status
institutionalized at the time of colonial village settlement lead to a sustained
divergence in the rate of intergenerational educational mobility, with limited
mobility for nonproprietary and marginalized groups compared to proprietary
groups. Inter-class differences in the rate of mobility are higher in proprietary
landed estates where the colonial state had concentrated land rights and
governance in the hands of landowners compared to crown estates that had a more
egalitarian arrangement of land rights and governance. We find that the
divergence in inter-class mobility is worrying, so much so that the current
generation of marginalized households appears to have fallen a generation behind
in terms of educational attainment, even though it resides in the same villages as
the proprietary households.
