Portal Red Investigadores de Economía

This paper studies social mobility in Colombia at a regional level, for 2003 and 2010. Colombia has one of the highest levels of income concentration in the world. It also has significant regional economic disparities. Both the high level of regional economic disparities and the income concentration have been highly persistent. In this paper we study one of the determinants of that persistence: low levels of social mobility across the generations. The results of this paper confirm those low levels of intergenerational mobility in education. However, comparing the years 2003 with 2010 we notice that there have been improvements in this regard. The results also reveal a strong association between the level of income of a region and the degree of social mobility it presents. There is also a negative and significant correlation between the degree of income inequality of a region and the extent of social mobility. This research represents a first attempt to study the relation between conditions of social mobility with inequalities, to advance in the study of the intergenerational transmission of inequality in Colombia. © Revista de Economía del Rosario.

Regional Aspects of Social Mobility and Equality of Opportunities in Colombia [Aspetos regionais da mobilidade social e a igualdade de oportunidades na Colômbia] [Aspectos regionales de la movilidad social y la igualdad de oportunidades en Colombia]