Abstract:
We analyse 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 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 non-proprietary and marginalized groups compared to proprietary groups. The
inter-class differences in the rate of mobility are higher in proprietary landed estates where
the colonial state concentrated land rights and governance in the hands of landlords
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 physically resides in the same
villages as the proprietary households.
