Place and the limits of upward mobility in South Africa

South Africa's inequality is well documented, but its persistence across generations is less understood. New research maps intergenerational income mobility (the degree to which a person's economic outcomes in adulthood are shaped by their parents' income) across South Africa's district and metropolitan municipalities for the first time, revealing that a child's place of upbringing is a powerful determinant of their adult prospects. The country's apartheid-era spatial design continues to shape who gets ahead and who does not. South Africa's intergenerational elasticity ranges from 0.552 to 0.623 nationally, placing it among the most persistently unequal societies in the world in terms of economic inheritance Absolute upward mobility varies sharply across districts, from a p25 of 55.3 in Gert Sibande to 34.7 in John Taolo Gaetsewe, revealing that childhood location is a powerful correlate of adult income rank Children raised in former-homeland areas face somewhat lower absolute upward mobility and higher intergenerational persistence on aggregate than those raised elsewhere School quality, the share of better-resourced schools and learner-teacher ratios, is among the strongest district-level correlates of upward mobility