The distinction of primary and secondary effects of social background on educational attain-ment, which has been introduced by Boudon (1974), has received a lot of attention recently. Primary effects are influences of social background on school performance and secondary effects are influences of social background on educational decisions even if performance is held constant. Erikson et al. (2005) have provided a method to empirically evaluate the impact of primary and secondary effects at educational transitions. In this paper I draw on this method and extend it to a sequential consideration of transitions from elementary school to higher education enrolment in Germany. Furthermore, I provide an example of how different data sources can be combined for this purpose when biographical data on educational careers is absent. Following the primary and secondary effects framework I simulate the cumulative impact of interventions at different branching points of the education system and evaluate the counterfactual outcomes against the factual situation. The results reveal that interventions at early branching points are more effective than late interventions. They suggest further that measures that are targeted at reducing primary effects are effective in retaining performance levels but only moderately effective in increasing educational participation rates. Measures that are targeting at a reduction of secondary effects are effective in increasing participation rates but lead to a devaluation of performance levels.

Vocational education and training (VET) has grown in many countries
in recent decades. According to Eurostat statistics, more students
take part in vocational than general/academic upper secondary
education tracks in Europe. And yet, the discussions about the benefits
of such programmes are highly controversial. The European Commission
and their advisers hold that Vocational Education and Training is vital
for Europe‘s future competitiveness and innovation. The Commission sees
it as an essential part of its education policy and tries to push Member
States to strengthen the provision of VET.1 Others, in contrast, argue:
Europe has too much vocational training at the expense of general education.
Vocational education was appropriate for the manufacturing age,
but with the scientific, technological and communication revolution since
then, jobs have become more knowledge intensive; they require more analytical
and communication skills. In this new world, education with an
emphasis on general competences is more efficient than vocational qualifications
that are too narrow and too specific. Krüger and Kumar (2004)
explicitly conclude that it is because of the now outdated emphasis on
vocational education in Europe that up to the 1970s Europe had similar
or higher economic growth rates than the US while since then the rates
of growth in Europe are smaller than in the US.
What is the evidence of benefits and costs of VET that gives rise to
such contrary assessment? In this contribution, two issues are addressed.

First, what do we know about the individual and social returns to VET
on the labour market? Second, what is the contribution of VET to educational
and social inequality? Needless to say: both issues are crucial.
To relate them is interesting because benefits and costs in the two dimensions
might differ.
Various other aspects of VET must be neglected, such as how different
forms of education might influence competences of individuals
in everyday life, or their values, attitudes, civil engagement or political
participation; also the pedagogical questions, such as whether the direct
application of the teaching content in practice facilitates learning. Do
students understand an idea or problem more easily when it is taught
in connection with practical application rather than in an abstract theoretical
way or are students motivated to try harder when they see the
immediate practical utility. Also, the focus will be on initial education
and training and neglect recurrent education in later stages of life.

Trend statistics reveal a striking reversal of a gender gap that has once favoured males: girls have surpassed boys in many aspects of the educational system. At the same time, the share of female teachers has grown in almost all countries of the western world. There is an ongoing, contentious debate on whether the gender of the teacher can account, in part, for the growing educational disadvantage of males. Findings have been mixed, so the issue remains unresolved. In this study, we use
large-scale data from IGLU-E, an expansion of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in Germany, to estimate whether there is a causal effect of having a same-sex teacher on student outcomes. The students in the sample were tested and interviewed at the end of fourth grade and have been taught by the same teacher for at least 2 years up to 4 years. This is a major advantage, because it can be assumed that substantial teacher-gender effects only occur after a certain
time of exposure to a same-sex or other-sex teacher. We estimate effects for typical ‘female’ subjects and typical ‘male’ subjects as well as for different student outcomes (‘gender-blind’ test scores and more subjective teacher’s grades). We find virtually no evidence of a benefit from having a same-sex teacher, neither for boys nor for girls. These findings suggest that the popular call for more male teachers in primary school is not the key to tackle the growing disadvantage of boys.

This paper explores to what extent changes in outcomes to tertiary compared to vocational training qualifications in Germany influence educational decisions of students that are eligible to enrol in tertiary education. The core hypothesis of the paper is that students from different social backgrounds should react differently to changes in returns on education. To this end, a unique dataset consisting of large scale surveys of university qualified students from the German Higher Education Information System Institute is used. The surveys were conducted at five different points in time between 1983 and 2004. All analyses are run separately for men and woman and average state unemployment and income ratios for tertiary degree holders and apprenticeship graduates for each survey year were matched to the micro data to assess the effect of changes in labour market outcomes on educational decisions. Contrary to many previous findings, the results of the paper suggest that variations in relative income ratios do not seem to affect educational decisions of school leavers while variation in unemployment seems to have significant effects on postsecondary decisions for women only. Furthermore, female students from lower class backgrounds seem to be more responsive to changes in unemployment ratios than their higher class peers.

The increase in European divorce rates over the past decades was accompanied by several changes in divorce laws. Yet for European countries, research on the effects of divorce law on the divorce rate is scarce. Most of the existing studies are based on data from North America and provide numerous, but inconsistent, results. We use fixed‐effects regression models to examine the impact of the introduction of unilateral divorce on the divorce rate in Western European countries. We find that de facto unilateral divorce practices led to a sustainable increase in the divorce rate, whereas legal rights to unilaterally divorce had no long‐run effects.

In this paper we investigate social selectivities in access to higher education in Germany and, unlike most previous studies, explicitly devote attention to semi-tertiary education such as the universities of cooperative education. Drawing on rational choice models of educational decisions we seek to understand which factors influence upper secondary graduates from different social backgrounds in their choices of diverse tertiary institutions in Germany.

Abstract

Recent research on social inequality and the family has pointed out that partners provide an important social context for individuals’ decisions, behaviour and resulting social outcomes. Unemployment is a particularly interesting issue to be studied in the context of partnership, as unemployment and the ensuing loss of income of one partner might affect the whole family, and fast re-employment reduces the risks of economic uncertainty and deprivation of the family. However, the particular effects of the partner and his or her resources on unemployment of the other and its duration have not yet been fully explored.
In our paper we examine how couples deal with each other’s unemployment, i.e. whether and how quickly re-integration into the labour market occurs. We look at the effects of different kinds of partner’s resources, in particular financial assets and social capital. Applying job search theory, one would expect that the more financial support the partner can provide, the longer an unemployment episode would last, whereas the higher the partner’s social capital, the more likely a job offer is to occur. Economic theories assume negative effects of both the partner’s financial resources and social capital on the other’s re-employment chances, either due to specialisation gains in the joint household or due to individual maximising of bargaining power that keeps the better-off partner from sharing resources. Whereas these theories are gender-neutral, gender role theories predict differential effects of the partner’s resources for women and men. If a male partner provides a high income during his wife’s unemployment this could prevent her from taking up work again. In the opposite case, this relationship of available resources and unemployment duration could be weak or non-existent. This ‘gender asymmetry’ should be modified by two characteristics: first, the birth cohorts the partners belong to, and second, whether or not they have children.
Empirically, we test these hypotheses using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), a longitudinal household survey. Based on this data source we analyse the effects of the partner’s resources on unemployment duration by applying event-history models. We find a partnership premium for men, whereas married women are least likely to leave unemployment. Regarding the role of different resources of the partner, men gain from their spouse’s labour market resources. Surprisingly, for women the partner’s income accelerates re-employment. However, this finding is mediated by the fact that in a traditional male breadwinner model the female minor earner refrains from re-entering paid work. Furthermore, we cannot detect historical changes, but strong differences for women with and without children.

In the tradition of the Wisconsin-School, it has been argued that educational aspirations are of causal significance for explaining educational outcomes. Furthermore, effects of families’ socioeconomic background are assumed to be explained by respective differences in academic ambitions. In testing these assumptions barely all studies failed to differentiate between two different aspiration concepts. Whereas realistic aspirations are merely forecasts about the likely educational career, taking all relevant and known factors influencing educational success into account, idealistic aspirations refer to (self-)obligations to reach certain educational credentials. Since only idealistic aspirations can be assumed to have motivational significance and both kinds of aspirations are likely to be associated, only the net-effect of idealistic aspirations, controlling for the effect of realistic expectation, provides evidence for differences in ambitions to explain educational outcomes. Despite the Janus-faced nature of the aspiration concept, barely all available studies tested the effect of single aspiration measures on educational outcomes. Thus, it is unclear to what extend the observed effects express motivational differences due to idealistic wishes or only the anticipation of opportunities and constraints. In the present article we propose separate measures for both aspiration concepts and test their net-effects on the decision between secondary school tracks in Germany. Firstly, we found realistic rather than idealistic aspirations much more affected by the students’ level and temporal development of grade-point average. This supports the assumed differences in the nature of the two aspiration measures. Secondly, realistic aspirations were substantially associated with educational decisions. This effect was considerably reduced when controlling indicators for the children’s academic competencies. Thirdly, although controlling school achievement and realistic aspirations, the parents’ idealistic wishes were found to have a substantial additional net-effect on educational decisions. This confirms the assumed independent effect of aspirations. However, the effect of idealistic aspirations is found to be dependent on the discrepancy from realistic expectations: the more both differ, the less high idealistic aspirations motivate a decision for the most ambitious secondary school track.

Keywords: Educational Aspirations, Educational Decisions, Inequality.

Many studies have demonstrated a disadvantageous position for children of Turkish immigrants in the German educational system. This paper analyses whether an intergenerational assimilation process can be detected regarding the cognitive skills and German language skills of young children of Turkish origin in Germany. A ‘forms-of-capital’ model is applied that assumes that the families’ endowment with various sorts of capital strongly affects the next generation’s skill development and educational attainment. A detailed differentiation of children’s generational status is used including second and third generation immigrant children as well as the 2.5 generation and children of intermarriages with natives. The data of the project ‘Preschool Education and Educational Careers among Migrant Children’ show large differences between native German children and all groups of migrant children with regard to German language skills. Also substantial differences with regard to cognitive skills are found for all children of Turkish origin except for those with one native German parent. Second and third generation children do not differ from each other on both tests while especially children with a first generation mother and a second generation father score worse than all other groups. All differences between the generational groups (including the difference to the Germans) regarding children’s cognitive skills can be explained by the families socioeconomic status and educational resources while significant generational differences remain regarding children’s German language skills. This latter skill is very specific for the receiving society and all remaining generational differences within the sample of Turkish children can be accounted for by the parents’ endowment with receiving country specific resources (e.g., parental German language proficiency). The results contradict the notion of a straight-line assimilation of Turkish immigrants in Germany.

The Theory of Segmented Assimilation has become a popular framework for explaining the
adaptation of the children of the post-1969 wave of immigration to the United States. These are
assumed to experience divergent outcomes depending on the way they are received by US
society, their access to social capital through ethnic communities and the exposure to the
oppositional cultures of marginalised domestic minorities. The article critically reviews those
arguments and provides a test in the area of school performance. Based on data from the regional
Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, my analyses show that indicators of communitybased
social capital can indeed account for a considerable extent of inter-ethnic differences in
school performance. However, my results challenge the notions that ethnic communities are
generally supportive of the school performance of the second generation, while contact with the
oppositional cultures of domestic minorities is the main cause of lower-than-average
achievement. Instead, they support a conditional view of ethnic communities. According to this
view, the extent to which immigrant families’ insertion into ethnic communities can support the
school performance of their children depends on the communities’ socio-economic profile and
level of aspirations.

First draft – please do not cite or quote!

Abstract

In Germany as in many other industrialised countries participation rates of women in higher education have markedly increase and enrolment rates of men and women are nowadays almost equal. The increase of participation in higher education among women has affected both, graduation from higher institutions (universities) and lower tier institutions (Fachhochschule). Regarding changes of inequalities in education due to social background, previous research has shown that in spite of expansion and differentiation of higher education inequalities have not disappeared. For example, working class children more often opt for the less costly and risky Fachhochschule whereas children from higher social classes prefer universities. Although both aspects gender and class differences have already been examined broadly in previous research, only a few studies go into more details by e.g. concentrating on the effect of social class background among the increasing share of female graduates. In this paper I will look at women only and examine changes in the effects of family background on women’s participation in higher education. In the empirical analyses I use pooled data of four Germany surveys: the German general social survey (ALLBUS 1980 – 2006), ZUMA Standarddemographie (ZUMABUS) 1976 – 1982, German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) 1986, 1999 and 2000 and German Life History Study (GLHS) I to III.

Earlier studies disagree whether differences in the human capital configuration or employer discrimination explain second generation Turkish migrants‘ disadvantages when entering the labor market. This research understood the successful completion of an occupational education as part of the human capital configuration and identified it as the major predictor of a successful transition into the labor market. However they disregarded that access to occupational education in Germany is for the most part provided by companies, and hence discrimination can occur already when companies decide whom to take in for their occupational education programs. We therefore analyzed the whole secondary school to labor market transition using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study. Human capital variables, including receiving country specific capital as e.g. German language abilities or ethnic composition of networks, did not fully explain the ethnic penalty Turkish migrants experience when entering vocational education. Analyzing who starts and who manages to complete a vocational education, significant residuals for Turkish remain. Estimating labor market entry models, we find vocational education to be one of the strongest predictors of a successful transition into paid labor. Finally, interaction models show that a complete vocational education pays of less for Turkish migrants. The latter finding is direct evidence for statistical discrimination. Our conservative conclusion is that the available human capital measures do not fully explain Turkish migrants‘ disadvantages.

Earlier studies disagree over whether differences in the human capital configuration or employer discrimination explain second-generation migrants’ disadvantages when entering German labor markets. While the human capital explanation has been tested extensively, less convincing research explores employer discrimination. Furthermore, past research understood the successful completion of a vocational education as part of the human capital configuration and identified it as the major predictor of a successful transition into the labor market. This disregards, however, that for the most part companies are the providers of access to vocational education in Germany, and hence discrimination may occur when companies make their enrollment decisions for these programs. Importantly, this suggests investigating an earlier time point in the process when discrimination may occur than previous studies have considered. Therefore, using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study, we analyze the transition from secondary school into the labor market in two steps: first, the transition into vocational education, and second into employment. The GSOEP allows a comprehensive specification of human capital and testing of corollary hypotheses derived from statistical discrimination and taste discrimination.
Using discrete event history models for access to and completion of vocational education programs we find significant and substantial ethnic residuals especially for young Turkish men, even when controlling for receiving country specific capital. This raises serious doubts in specifying vocational education as part of human capital. For the second part of the process, the actual transition into regular employment, we use hybrid estimation modeling. This allows the simultaneous estimation of fixed and random effects, i.e. the estimation of the full set of theoretically relevant predictors. Human capital, including receiving country specific resources, such as German language abilities or the ethnic composition of networks, does not fully explain the ethnic penalties young males with Turkish migration background experience. Finally, interaction models show that a completed vocational education pays off less for Turkish as compared to Germans, again the effect is pronounced for Turkish men. The latter finding is direct evidence for statistical discrimination. Regarding taste discrimination we find no evidence, although, this is conducted through an indirect test. In conclusion, the inclusive human capital measures available in the GSOEP do not fully explain Turkish second-generation migrants’ disadvantages; partly it can be attributed to statistical discrimination.

The naming practice of immigrants is studied as an example of their emotional identification with the host society and with the society of origin. Since first names can be chosen freely and at no cost, they are a good indicator for the parents’ desired form of acculturation. With data from the project “Preschool Education and Educational Careers among Migrant Children” it is analysed if Turkish parents in Germany choose a first name for their child which is common only in Turkey, only in Germany or in both countries. This first name choice represents a separated, an assimilated or an integrated emotional identification of the parents. Most of the parents choose a Turkish name for their child, but girls are more frequently given names that are common in both cultures than boys, while German names are only rarely chosen. Intermarriage strongly decreases the probability for separation in naming and especially increases the probability for the integration option, while the presence of a parent with the German citizenship enhances assimilation stronger than integration. More traditional and religious families tend to choose rather a Turkish name. The results of the first name choice are compared to analogous analyses of the respondents’ identity, which is the usual indicator of immigrants’ emotional identification. In principle the effects are similar, but the proportion of integration is considerably higher in the identity choice than in the name choice.

According to Boudon’s (1974) well-known micro-theoretical model of educational transitions, educational inequality stems from two sources: primary effects – which are all those that are expressed by the association between social origin and academic performance; and secondary effects – which are transition propensities differing between families of different social origin – even at the same level of performance. The evaluation of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects is the aim of a growing body of literature. I contribute to this line of research by firstly evaluating the relative importance of these two effects at the transition to upper secondary school in Germany and secondly assessing whether the substantive federal state (‘Länder’) differences in the transition regulations affect the relative importance of these effects. Employing nationwide panel data (years 2002-2005) developed by the German Youth Institute (DJI), primary and secondary effects can be decomposed through counterfactual analysis. Results indicate that secondary effects are the main source of educational inequality, accounting for 59% of the total inequality. They are especially strong for children with medium (as opposed to very high or very low) grades. Furthermore, the relative importance of secondary effects is higher when parents can freely choose a secondary school track and lower when the parents’ freedom to choose is restricted because teachers decide instead of them. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

This paper is the concluding chapter of the book manuscript that explores the role of the education system in the process of labour market integration in ten CEE countries (Eastern Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine and Russia). This book is a first systematic comparative study on the consequence of system transformation on young people’s educational attainment and labour market integration which moves beyond simple contrasts of socialism vs. capitalism as modes of social organization by putting into focus the institutional diversity in post-socialist societies, in which stratification processes are embedded.

For the ten CEE countries we analyze, we can document educational expansion and differentiation of tertiary education at a speed hardly ever observed in Western societies, with substantial variations across countries in the role of market-based financing of higher education. At the same time in many countries, we observe a decline in the role of vocational schools at the secondary level, which had formed a crucial part of skill supply under the socialist production regime. While these post-transformation trends are general, their dynamics and consequences differ depending on the national historic and institutional context.

Our results of the educational attainment show that the expansion of tertiary education has benefited children from the middle classes. We further show whether and how expansion, stratification and diversification of higher education as well as the changing significance of vocational education have altered educational attainment and labour market entry. While more favourable performance of tertiary graduates in terms of speed of entry and quality of the first job is observable in all CEE countries, the relative advantage of tertiary graduates varies with the degree of expansion and differentiation of the tertiary sector. Nevertheless, even relatively inferior tertiary tracks still have better payoffs compared to secondary education in the majority of countries. In countries with shrinking vocational secondary education vocationally-oriented lower tertiary tracks provide a functioning substitute.

The role of vocational degrees is highly differentiated depending on the country-specific institutional arrangements. In countries that inherited or re-established a German-Austrian tradition of strong vocational orientation at the secondary level and adhered to vocationalism and apprenticeships as a key pathway into the labour market, vocational education still provides a viable alternative to tertiary education. In the absence of an institutional framework supporting effective vocational education, however, vocational programs have become a last-choice option for disadvantaged youth.

This paper is the concluding chapter of the book manuscript that explores the role of the education system in the process of labour market integration in ten CEE countries (Eastern Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine and Russia). This book is a first systematic comparative study on the consequence of system transformation on young people’s educational attainment and labour market integration which moves beyond simple contrasts of socialism vs. capitalism as modes of social organization by putting into focus the institutional diversity in post-socialist societies, in which stratification processes are embedded.

For the ten CEE countries we analyze, we can document educational expansion and differentiation of tertiary education at a speed hardly ever observed in Western societies, with substantial variations across countries in the role of market-based financing of higher education. At the same time in many countries, we observe a decline in the role of vocational schools at the secondary level, which had formed a crucial part of skill supply under the socialist production regime. While these post-transformation trends are general, their dynamics and consequences differ depending on the national historic and institutional context.

Our results of the educational attainment show that the expansion of tertiary education has benefited children from the middle classes. We further show whether and how expansion, stratification and diversification of higher education as well as the changing significance of vocational education have altered educational attainment and labour market entry. While more favourable performance of tertiary graduates in terms of speed of entry and quality of the first job is observable in all CEE countries, the relative advantage of tertiary graduates varies with the degree of expansion and differentiation of the tertiary sector. Nevertheless, even relatively inferior tertiary tracks still have better payoffs compared to secondary education in the majority of countries. In countries with shrinking vocational secondary education vocationally-oriented lower tertiary tracks provide a functioning substitute.

The role of vocational degrees is highly differentiated depending on the country-specific institutional arrangements. In countries that inherited or re-established a German-Austrian tradition of strong vocational orientation at the secondary level and adhered to vocationalism and apprenticeships as a key pathway into the labour market, vocational education still provides a viable alternative to tertiary education. In the absence of an institutional framework supporting effective vocational education, however, vocational programs have become a last-choice option for disadvantaged youth.

In European welfare states, minimum income schemes act as a last safety net when all other benefits have been exhausted or contribution records are insufficient. As the generosity of core systems of European welfare states decreases in several respects, more people may become dependent on minimum income protection systems. I will present first results of a project where we combine an analysis of welfare state institutions with an analysis of public attitudes towards these institutional patterns. The paper, however, focuses on the first part of the project and provides institutional indicators that capture those characteristics of social assistance schemes that are most important for the public perception of both the system and its beneficiaries. The rationale behind this perspective is that tax-financed and strongly selective schemes are prone to cutbacks, as the majority of the population finances the system without ever profiting from it. Thus, public opinion on the minimum income protection is important for its further development. Among the most important underlying institutional dimensions are access, generosity, and reciprocity. The second part of the paper describes preliminary country groupings based on cluster analyses run on the indicators proposed and makes a tentative connection to attitudes on income redistribution and the poor.

The paper examines the quality of educational information collected for the SILC database, concentrating on the following specific issues:
(1) The distribution of education along the ISCED 97 level categories
(2) The stability of education measures over successive survey years in EU-SILC
(3) Comparison of education measures in EU-SILC, EU-LFS and ESS
(4) Explanatory power of education as measured in EU-SILC

In EU-SILC education is measured along a simplified version of the International Standard Classification of Education 1997 (ISCED 97). The ISCED version used in the harmonized EU-SILC database distinguishes 6 levels of education. It neglects, however, any distinctions within levels of education according to the sub-dimensions programme orientation and programme destination, which, in principle, are also available in the ISCED 97-classification Roughly speaking, the former sub-dimension refers to the distinction between predominantly general/academic vs. predominantly vocational types of courses of study. This distinction is known to be quite crucial for a number of education related outcomes, such as for returns on the labour market, educational opportunities of children or various attitudinal or behavioural correlates of education.

In examining the 4 data quality aspects, mentioned above, the paper finds a number of serious problems in the measurement available for education in the EU-SILC data.
(1) As a consequence of using the simplified “only levels version” of the ISCED classification the resulting measurement of education comes out as a very rough classification with large proportions of the population coded into large highly heterogeneous categories. This is particularly true for ISCED level 3, but with increasing significance among the younger cohorts also for ISCED level 5. But even in countries, in which educational attainment is more evenly distributed among the various levels distinguished by ISCED, the lack of differentiation within heterogeneous categories can damage measurement quality. .
(2) In a number of countries the paper finds high measurement instability from wave to wave drawing into doubt the interwave reliability of the measures. Also in terms of criterion validity education measures in EU-SILC need improvement. In a few countries, the correlations between ISCED and ISEI (International Socio-Economic Index) vary considerably between waves.
(3) Even larger discrepancies in education distributions result from the comparison of education measures in EU-SILC and the education measures in EU-LFS in spite of the fact that both databases are produced by the same NSIs. In some of the countries, dissimilarities between the two sources are rather large.
(4) Neglecting the vocational/general distinction can lead to substantial heterogeneity within the aggregated levels of education in terms of the various correlates of education. The explanatory power of education (as measured e.g. by the variance explained) is considerably underestimated when vocational and general courses of study are not distinguished.
In comparative research these issues lead to a further problem: The significance of the vocational / general distinction likely varies between countries, and therefore, the explanatory power of educational attainment is likely to be attenuated in different ways and to a different extent in different countries. Thus, cross-national comparisons based on the simplified ISCED used in EU-SILC (and other cross-national surveys) are likely to be seriously misleading.

In this article we investigate social inequality at the transition to tertiary education in Germany by drawing on Boudon’s well-known distinction between primary and secondary effects of social class origin. Primary effects describe class differentials that are related to academic performance, secondary effects comprise class differentials in educational choices, given the same performance levels. In order to generate estimates on the relative importance of primary and secondary effects in the creation of class differentials in tertiary choices and their development over time, we apply a procedure which has recently been developed by Jackson et al. (2007). For our analyses we rely on a series of datasets from the German Higher Education Information Systems Institute (HIS) on students who have gained eligibility for tertiary education in 1983, 1990, 1994 and 1999. Our results show that class differentials in the transition to higher education in Germany are mainly due to secondary effects. While the relative importance of primary vs. secondary effects does not change over time, overall class effects seem to be generally more pronounced for women. In the second part of the analyses we relate the secondary effects to explanatory factors, such as motivational differences or cost-benefit expectations in order to gain more insight into the underlying mechanisms.

Reference:

Jackson, M., Erikson, R., Goldthorpe, J. H. and Yaish, M. (2007) ‘Primary and Secondary Effects in Class Differentials in Educational Attainment: The Transition to A-Level Courses in England and Wales’, Acta Sociologica 50(3): 211-229.

Children start school with differing levels of skills. Thus, children of different social origin have different probabilities of educational success right from the start of their school career. This paper analyses how the gap in language abilities of children with different class background develops from age three to five. A focus lies on the question whether preschool education can help to close this gap. The data of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) show that children’s score on a standardized vocabulary test strongly depends on their parents’ social class. These class differences remains stable or even increase slightly over the two-year period. Using fixed effect models, it is demonstrated that children of higher class families can improve their vocabulary more strongly than children whose parents have either a lower or middle class position. Participation in an early education institution positively affects the vocabulary development of middle and lower class children while there is no significant preschool effect for children of higher class parents. The results indicate that preschool attendance does not lead to a catching up process of lower class children. But without preschool attendance, the gap between higher and lower class children widens even further.

Previous research as shown that social origin affects educational attainment. In the light of increasing participation in tertiary education, there has recently been growing interest in social selectivity at the tertiary level and how these differences are conditioned by educational institutions.
In this paper we examine a particular feature of educational careers in postsecondary education, namely labor force participation before final graduation comparing Germany and the US. We analyze two different aspects of discontinuities in education: First we look at tertiary graduates asking who – in terms of social origin and other individual characteristics – has achieved the final degree ‘in one go’ and who has interrupted education. Second, we are interested in the decision process of returning to education being in the labor market and examine the influence of social origin on re-enrollment.
To explain the micro processes we build on theories of educational decisions, for comparing differences in social origin effects in Germany and US we use a characterization of each country’s ‘transition regime’ of higher education. We expect that working class children more often interrupt their educational career and that this effect is weaker in the US. At the same time, once in the labor market service class children are expected to be more likely to return to education, in particularly in the US.
Our empirical analyses only partly confirm our hypotheses: Although there are some class differences at first sight, these are small and almost disappear if we take other variables into account. Hence on both – patterns of interrupted educational careers and the decision to return to higher education – parental class has only a marginal influence. Rather, individual characteristics such as gender and ability and institutional factors such as having attended lower tiers of higher education or having achieved a vocational degree are the main variables of influence. Comparing Germany and the US, class differences are slightly stronger in the US, but here “ability” explains most of the class differences in re-enrolment rates.

Der Beitrag untersucht für Deutschland die sozialen Disparitäten beim Besuch
des Gymnasiums und beim Erwerb der Hochschulreife in ihrer langfristigen Entwicklung
seit dem ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts bis in die jüngste Gegenwart. Er diskutiert theoretisch
den Wandel der institutionellen und strukturellen Bedingungen, aus denen Veränderungen in den
primären und sekundären Disparitäten nach sozialer Herkunft zu erwarten sind. Auf der Grundlage
von Daten aus zahlreichen repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfragen und einer langen Reihe
von Mikrozensuserhebungen zeigt er dann, wie beim Erwerb höherer Bildung die Abhängigkeiten
von der sozialen Herkunft in verschiedenen historischen Perioden für Männer und Frauen geringer
geworden sind. Dabei zeigt sich, dass in jüngster Zeit bei den Frauen die Bildungsbeteiligung
weniger von der sozialen Herkunft abhängt als bei den Männern. Dies erklärt zu einem nicht unwesentlichen
Teil den inzwischen von den Frauen gegenüber den Männern erreichten Vorsprung
im Erwerb höherer Bildung.

Since the postwar boom came to an end in the 1970s, advanced Western economies have entered a phase of sustained economic restructuring. Educational expansion and technological change have been central in reshaping the labour market value of educational degrees in this process. This study seeks to account for the effects of the concurrent dynamics of educational expansion and technological change on youth unemployment risks in 21 European countries in the 1990s and early 2000s. Drawing on cohort panel data and using first difference estimators, we attempt to assess whether a polarization of unemployment risks across skill groups has occurred and to what extent observed changes in the distribution of unemployment risks can be explained by structural factors. Educational expansion is found to raise unemployment among tertiary educated, while it also raises unemployment among individuals with only lower secondary education or less due to crowding out processes. Both effects are amplified in countries operating an extensive apprenticeship system at the secondary level. In contrast, skill-biased technological change, measured by the spread of personal computers, significantly decreases unemployment rates but only for tertiary educated youth. Globalization is not associated with youth unemployment risks in any way.

Most of the empirical studies on education and fertility focus on characteristics of the female spouse. The role of the partner is often neglected. Yet, most children are fathered and grow up in a relationship. Hence, we assume that both partners’ education has to be regarded when analysing family formation. In our paper, we use couples as the unit of analyses and look at each partner’s education and the couple’s educational constellation, i.e. if both partners have the same educational level or if one partner is higher educated than the other. In our empirical analysis on first births we us the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP).

A review of existing sociological literature on the relation between educational attainment and fertility decisions reveals that most empirical studies focus on characteristics of the female spouse. The role of the partner is neglected for the most part. Yet, most children are fathered and raised in an existing relationship. Hence, we assume that the influence of both partner’s education has to be regarded as an important determining factor for childbirth. From a theoretical perspective using bargaining models family formation can be seen as a collective decision mutually agreed upon by both spouses and therefore characteristics, resources and attitudes of both partners have to be considered. In our paper, we use this approach to examine fertility decisions, taking into account both partners as actors and couples as the unit of analyses. Hence, we look at each partner’s educational attainment and the couple’s educational constellation, i.e. if both partners have the same educational level or if one partner is higher educated than the other.

Furthermore, from a life course perspective we apply a dynamic perspective. Regarding education, we are interested in both, in educational attainment and as well as the time since having left the educational system. In particular we are interested in how these individual characteristics are mediated by the partner’s and how these develop with the partnership’s duration. We thereby combine aspects of the individual life course of women and men with couple’s life course characteristics.
Our empirical analysis is based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) that allows us to model partnership formation and duration as well as childbirth simultaneously.

While a considerable body of research about tertiary education expansion and its labour market returns exist for western industrialized countries, far less is known concerning Eastern European countries. However, especially the rapid tertiary education expansion seen there in recent years demand research on the specific conditions governing school-to-work transition among tertiary education graduates. In this respect, Ukraine is an interesting case because of its massive expansion in tertiary educational attainment in recent years. This expansion has been accompanied by an increased differentiation of higher education institutions.
In previous research we have shown that even relatively inferior tertiary tracks still have better payoffs compared to secondary education in terms of different labour market outcome dimensions such as the speed at labour market entry and the occupational status attained. The central research question of this contribution is, however, whether we can identify differences between graduates of various tertiary education institutions. From a theoretical point of view, we expect to find large heterogeneity within the group of tertiary graduates in terms of labour market prospects due to differences in self-selection mechanisms, signalling capacities, skill acquisitions, and closure processes. Furthermore, the strong tertiary education expansion might have outpaced the demand for high-skilled and led to a certain degree of occupational mismatches among tertiary graduates.
Our analyses are based on retrospective micro-data data from unique, high-quality, large-scale Ukrainian school-leaver survey, which is representative for the whole country. The data allow for a differentiated view at the level of higher tertiary education in the light of its remarkable expansion such as different nationally standardized levels of institutional accreditation, differences between public and private higher education institutions, tuition and non-tuition based institutions, part-time and full-time students as well as field of study differences.
We investigate the performance of graduates from different higher education institutions in a multidimensional evaluation looking at the pace of labour market entry and, especially, the matching quality of the first significant job attained. The matching quality is measured by subjective assessments of the respondents whether and how much their educational level deviates from the education required for the specific job they perform. Furthermore, we use an objective approach of measuring occupational matching by analyzing the transition probabilities to specific skill segments in the labour market.