Post-socialist transition and intergenerational educational mobility in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

We investigate long-term trends in intergenerational educational mobility in a lower middle-income transition economy. We draw on evidence from Kyrgyzstan using data from three household surveys collected in 1993, 1998 and 2011. We find that Kyrgyzstan, like Eastern European middle-income transition economies, maintained high educational mobility, comparable to levels during the Soviet era. However, we find that the younger cohorts, exposed to the transition during their school years, experienced a rapid decline in educational mobility. We also document that gender differences in schooling and educational mobility, found among older-aged individuals, disappeared in the younger cohorts.