Research has shown that intergenerational mobility is higher among individuals with a college degree than among those with lower levels of schooling. However, mobility declines among graduate-degree holders. This finding questions the meritocratic power of higher education. Prior research has been hampered, however, by the small samples of advanced degree holders in representative surveys. Drawing on a large longitudinal dataset of PhD holders –the Survey of Doctorate Recipients– this study examines intergenerational mobility among the American educational elite, separately for men and women and different racial/ethnic groups. Results show substantial mobility among PhD holders. The association between parents’ education and adult children’s earnings is moderate among men and non-existent among women with doctoral degrees. However, women’s earnings converge to an average level that is much lower than men’s, signaling “perverse openness” for women even at the top of the educational distribution. Among men, there is variation in mobility by race and ethnicity. The intergenerational socioeconomic association is null for Asian men, small for white and black men, and more pronounced for Hispanics. Educational and occupational mediators account for intergenerational association among blacks and whites but not Hispanic men. A doctoral degree largely detaches individuals from their social origins in the United States but it does not eliminate all sources of inequality
Gender in Uganda’s tertiary educational distribution