Siew Yean Tham: Khalid's paper addresses an important gap in the literature on income inequality in Malaysia—namely, the extent of socioeconomic mobility and its determinants. The issue addressed is important because of the policy focus on income inequality in the country for the last five and a half decades, and the coverage of the data collected renders the data set used in his analysis to be the first of its kind for Malaysia.
The findings from his survey indicate that educational mobility is high, with 62 percent of children being better educated than their parents. This is not surprising in view of the fact that the relatively high level of educational expenditure in Malaysia has led to significant improvements in student enrollment, resulting in almost near-universal access at the primary and lower secondary levels (Malaysia 2013). Obtaining more education does not necessarily translate to upward occupational or income mobility,...