Does government spending on education increase intergenerational education mobility?: The case of Free Compulsory Basic Education in Ghana

This paper examines whether Ghana’s education reforms have increased intergenerationaleducation mobility (IEM). Using the newly constructed Ghana Education and Labour Series(GELS)—a harmonised dataset combining multiple rounds of the Ghana Living StandardsSurvey—we track IEM trends for cohorts born between 1958 and 1992. Utilising bottom-halfmobility, a measure of the expected educational rank of children born to fathers in thebottom half of the education distribution, we find that despite substantial gains in educationalattainment across cohorts, mobility has remained largely unchanged. We estimate causaleffects of the 1996 Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education policy using regional and cohortvariation in exposure. The reform substantially increased years of schooling, particularly forwomen and those born in northern regions, but had only a modest effect on intergenerationalmobility. These findings suggest that while free and compulsory education expanded access,structural inequalities continue to limit equal opportunities.​