Mobility and Pathways to the Middle Class in Nepal

Tiwari, Sailesh ; Shidiq, Akhmad Rizal ; Balcazar, Carlos Felipe

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: inequality;    intergenerational mobility;    middle class;    vulnerability;    living standards;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7824
RP-ID  :  WPS7824

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper introduces a variety ofconcepts and methods to examine living standardsimprovements in Nepal in a dynamic perspective. Using datafrom three rounds of Nepal Living Standards Surveysconducted in the past two decades, together with data from anationally representative survey that was implemented in2014 specifically to collect information on social andeconomic mobility, the paper presents novel statistics onthe extent of inter- and intra-generational mobility inNepal. The findings suggest that there has been appreciableupward mobility in education; that is, Nepalis today areincreasingly more likely to be better educated than theirparents. However, inter-generational mobility of occupationshas been much more muted, with 47 percent of Nepal todayremaining in the same occupation as their parents. Upwardmobility is higher for younger cohorts and for individualswho move from their rural areas of birth to an urban area.There are also significant differences in mobility by socialgroups, with Dalits and Terai caste groups having lowerupward mobility odds. Examining mobility within generationsusing synthetic panel techniques, the paper finds that: (a)for every two people who escape poverty, one slides back,suggesting significant churning around the poverty line; (b)a large fraction of those who have escaped poverty remainvulnerable to falling back, with an overall vulnerablepopulation of 45 percent; and (c) the share of the middleclass—defined as those with sufficiently low likelihood offalling back into poverty—has increased steadily over thepast two decades, reaching 22 percent in 2010–11. However,triangulating subjective well-being data from Gallup, itappears that a majority of even those who constitute themiddle class are fundamentally insecure about their economicfutures. The prevalence of a large vulnerable population anda nascent, growing but struggling middle class represents akey challenge to consolidating recent gains in moving peopleout of poverty.