Keeping families together the key to children’s success

Intergenerational upward mobility in the past half century in Hong Kong, measured by correlating parents’ schooling attainment to that of their children for those born between 1956 and 1991, has not changed once we take into account waves of emigration.

Nonetheless, there is a perception that those born in the 1980s and 1990s have worse school opportunities than those born between 1961 and 1976, when emigration opened up educational opportunities that might otherwise not have been available.

Job opportunities have also become more competitive since 1997 as some emigrants and their children returned to Hong Kong in search of better economic opportunities.

In fact, Hong Kong’s real challenge is a shortage of relevant skills, which is detrimental to both economic growth and equality. We need to invest in educational opportunities today to make up for lost time.

Although educational opportunities have been stable over time for each generation as a whole, they are not equal across different families with different backgrounds. An important challenge for society is how to improve the opportunities for those who are born into disadvantage.

It used to be believed that free education for all was a sufficient path to opportunity. However, despite half a century of free education policies in most of the developed world, inequality has not improved. So what is the problem?

Research on the US experience has shown that half the variation in lifetime income inequality is determined before a child enters secondary school. This implies that an early start is needed to help children in disadvantaged families. The issue is how to identify and reach these children.

I analysed intergenerational mobility in schooling attainment in Hong Kong, focusing on young people aged 20 to 24 years, and found they experienced significant disadvantages if they were recent migrants, their parents were recent migrants and/or they grew up in households with a single parent.