Social mobility during South Africa’s industrial take-off
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP04/2017Publication date: May 2017
Author(s):
[protected email address] (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)
In the absence of historical income or education data, the change in occupations over time can be used as a measure of social mobility. This paper investigates intergenerational occupational mobility using a novel genealogical dataset for settler South Africa, spanning its transition from an agricultural to an early industrialized society (1800–1909). We identify fathers and sons for whom we have complete information on occupational attainment. We follow a two-generation discrete approach to measure changes in both absolute and relative mobility over time. Consistent with qualitative evidence of a shift away from agriculture as the economy’s dominant sector, we see the farming class shrinking and the skilled and professional classes growing. Controlling for changes in the structure of the labor market over time, we find increasing social mobility, becoming significant after the discovery of minerals in 1868. We find this mobility particularly for semi-skilled workers but virtually no improved mobility for sons of farmers. We also test hypotheses related to the mobility prospects for first-born sons and sons of immigrants.
JEL Classification:J60, J61, J62, N30, N37
Keywords:Intergenerational mobility, social mobility, resource curse, industrialization, colonialism, longitudinal data
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Monday 28 July 202512:00-13:00
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Topic: "Two competing approaches in South African competition policy: merger control and anti-cartel enforcement over the past 30 years"
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Topic: "Economic History: TBC"
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18 Jul 2025 Encouraging data, but messy politics while US tariff deadline loomsThe big global data prints of the week came on Tuesday, with better-than-expected Chinese GDP growth for Q2 and US core CPI coming in lower than expected, but still (finally) reflecting some signs of tariffs being passed on to consumers. Locally, the uptick in mining production and retail sales was positive for Q2 GDP dynamics. In addition to the data,...
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