Social Mobility in the Global South
Vegard Iversen, The University of Manchester
While social mobility in advanced economies has received extensive scholarly attention, crucial knowledge gaps remain about patterns and drivers of social mobility in the Global South. For intergenerational mobility, we presently lack in-depth understanding of the multiple hurdles to sustained progress captured by what we describe as moderate and large ascents: such ascents go beyond marginal and often fragile poverty escapes. Similar knowledge gaps exist for downward mobility, including moderate and large descents, which appear more prevalent and give rise to more serious normative concerns in developing country settings. Another major oversight - as the talk will illustrate - is that measures and methods that work well in advanced economies perform less well in contexts of poverty, making standard results hard to interpret and make sense of. Finally, research progress requires careful engagement with theory and with methodology and data challenges that deviate notably from those encountered in western contexts.
Venue: UNU-MERIT, Room 0.16-0.17
Date: 27 February 2018
Time: 13:00 - 14:00 CET
