Absolute Progress, Relative Persistence: Women's Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Turkiye

Absolute Progress, Relative Persistence: Women's Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Turkiye | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Absolute Progress, Relative Persistence: Women's Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Turkiye Elif Erbay This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9533264/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper documents intergenerational educational mobility among women in Turkiye, using four waves of the Turkish Demographic and Health Surveys (2003–2018) and birth cohorts from 1955 to 1995. Combining absolute mobility measures -- bottom persistence and bottom-up mobility -- with relative mobility measures -- intergenerational regression and correlation coefficients -- the analysis tracks how the mother-daughter schooling association evolved across cohorts and regions, with the 1997 compulsory schooling reform serving as a key institutional reference point. Three main findings emerge. First, post-reform cohorts display a marked divergence: absolute mobility improves substantially, yet relative mobility remains persistently low, indicating that parental background continues to govern daughters' relative position in the educational distribution. Second, bottom persistence does not converge to zero even among reform-exposed cohorts, indicating descriptive evidence of incomplete compliance and of constraints beyond the legal mandate. Third, regional maps show that gains were highly uneven, with weak upward mobility and persistent low attainment clustered in the east and southeast regions. Overall, educational expansion reduced extreme deprivation but did not equally weaken the role of family background in shaping women’s educational outcomes. JEL codes: I24, J16, J62 intergenerational mobility education women developing country Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files supplementary.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 08 May, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 08 May, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 28 Apr, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 28 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 26 Apr, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Combining absolute mobility measures -- bottom persistence and bottom-up mobility -- with relative mobility measures -- intergenerational regression and correlation coefficients -- the analysis tracks how the mother-daughter schooling association evolved across cohorts and regions, with the 1997 compulsory schooling reform serving as a key institutional reference point. Three main findings emerge. First, post-reform cohorts display a marked divergence: absolute mobility improves substantially, yet relative mobility remains persistently low, indicating that parental background continues to govern daughters' relative position in the educational distribution. Second, bottom persistence does not converge to zero even among reform-exposed cohorts, indicating descriptive evidence of incomplete compliance and of constraints beyond the legal mandate. 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