Parental ages and the intergenerational transmission of education: evidence from Germany, Norway, and the United States
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_A94E6D6B69FD
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Parental ages and the intergenerational transmission of education: evidence from Germany, Norway, and the United States
Journal
European Societies
ISSN
1461-6696
1469-8307
1469-8307
Publication state
Published
Issued date
05/02/2024
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Pages
1-28
Language
english
Abstract
The diverging destinies hypothesis predicts that educational inequality increases in contemporary societies because parents with higher levels of education postpone the birth of their children. This hypothesis is supported by empirical evidence demonstrating that advanced parental ages improve children’s educational outcomes. However, the consequences of socioeconomic differences in parental ages for the intergenerational transmission of education also depend on whether the associations between parental ages and child education vary by parental education. To test this hypothesis, we use data from three countries representing different welfare regimes: Germany, Norway, and the United States. In all three countries, children’s educational attainment at the secondary school level increases with higher parental ages more in families with low than in families with highly educated parents. In other words, the intergenerational transmission of education is stronger for younger than for older parents. Consequently, our findings nuance the diverging destinies hypothesis by demonstrating that increasing parental ages in socioeconomically disadvantaged families increases educational mobility more than decreasing parental ages in socioeconomically advantaged families. These findings are qualitatively the same in all three countries, suggesting that diverging destinies also occur in countries outside the United States.
Keywords
Educational attainment, family background, intergenerational mobility, parental ages
Open Access
Yes
Funding(s)
Swiss National Science Foundation / Careers / TMSGI1_211627
Create date
06/02/2024 12:53
Last modification date
07/02/2024 8:28