Description

Big Data for Socioeconomic Issues: Q/A

In Turkey and many other parts of the globe, intergenerational mobility greatly influences many people’s educational/academic lives. This means that parents of any individual tend to have a significant influence over the proceeding lives of the children. Be it in terms of education or income, indeed, there remains a substantial correlation concerning intergenerational mobility, as highlighted in the article published by Aydemir and Yazici (2019). This brings us to the question of how “absolute intergenerational educational mobility can be measured.” Absolute intergenerational mobility can be measured by comparing the average level of education (LOE) achieved by a person to the average education level achieved by their parents. However, there are also several various ways this endeavor can be achieved. For instance, researchers can focus on obtaining more information regarding the parent’s years of schooling, educational credentials, Skill sets, and educational attainment.

A regression model can be used to analyze the relationship between intergenerational educational mobility and other variables. For this analysis, let’s consider the dependent variable to be the highest LOE achieved by an individual (EDUC_ATT) and the independent variable to be the highest education level completed by the individual’s parent (PARENT_EDUC_ATT). The regression model can be represented as follows:

EDUC_ATT = β0 + β1 * PARENT_EDUC_ATT + ε

Where:

• EDUC_ATT is the dependent variable, representing an individual’s highest LOE (high school, college certification, or university degree).
• PARENT_EDUC_ATT is the independent variable representing the highest LOE the individual’s parent achieves.
• β0 is the intercept, representing the estimated highest LOE achieved when the parent’s education is zero.
• β1 is the coefficient, representing the estimated change in the highest LOE achieved for each additional LOE completed by the parent.
• ε is the error term, representing any unmeasured factors that may affect the highest LOE achieved by someone.

This model can estimate the relationship between an individual’s highest LOE and the level achieved by their parent, providing insight into the extent of intergenerational educational mobility in a population. The model’s coefficients can be estimated using regression analysis and can be used to predict the highest LOE achieved by an individual based on the highest LOE achieved by their parent.