Channels of Social Mobility, Education as a Promoter and Barrier in Chile

One of the main concerns and challenges of modern society is the level of equality of opportunity members of populations can enjoy. That becomes particularly important in societies where there is high income inequality. This research investigates the level of education and earnings mobility in Chile, finding relatively low intergenerational schooling dependency, but high in terms of intergenerational earnings compared to other countries.Schooling mobility seems to be lower than earnings mobility, which is opposite to what was expected in Chile. Consideringthis result, this research also analyses the effect of competition between schools on their average academic performance in the context of the Chilean educational reform implemented in the 1980s. In this respect, it is found that a larger number of public schools positively affects the quality of education of other schools located in an area, with the effect particularly pronounced amongst middle-class families and in middle-ranking schools. However, the number of voucher schools decreases the performance of neighbouring schools. The results are confirmed whilst ruling out endogenous location of voucher schools in areas with bad quality public schools, suggesting that sorting of students is driving the results. Finally, considering the possibility that schools might be a segregationalist environment, this investigation analyses the effects of assortative mating on the level of intergenerational earnings dependency in the country. It is found that assortative mating in terms of years of schooling explains around 20% of the intergenerational earnings dependency levels and that the educational reform increased the levels of assortative mating due to potential student sorting and a general increase of the educational attainment of the whole Chilean population.