Unequal Gradients: Gender, Skin Tone, and Intergenerational Economic Mobility

This paper was published in the Journal of Population Economics

Abstract

This paper studies how the intersection between skin tone and gender shapes intergenerational mobility of economic resources in Mexico. Using two recent social mobility surveys, we estimate rank persistence and transition matrices by gender and skin tone groups. We find no differences in intergenerational mobility patterns between light-skinned men and women. The colorist mobility pattern observed in previous literature affects men and women differently. For instance, the colorist gradient of expected current ranks, penalizing darker skin tonalities, is steeper for men starting at the bottom of the origin distribution, while the gradient in persistence rates at the top is steeper for women. Within each gender, the graded differences in expected ranks between light and intermediate skin tonalities are generally not statistically significant. Women of intermediate and darker skin tones have lower persistence rates at the top of the distribution of economic resources compared with their male peers.