Intergenerational mobility in Nepal: Does land ownership really matter?

This working paper investigates whether land ownership—the most prominent form of wealth in Nepal—promotes intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. Using three rounds of the Nepal Living Standards Survey and a cohort-based panel, the study analyses both relative and absolute occupational mobility between parents and children. The study finds that children from households with high land endowments but low-rank parental occupations are less likely to move upward relative to their district peers. The effect of land ownership on occupational mobility is only pertinent when parents already occupy high ranked occupations or are well educated in comparison to peers.