scholarly journals Sibling Similarity in Education Across and Within Societies

Demography ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Grätz ◽  
Kieron J. Barclay ◽  
Øyvind N. Wiborg ◽  
Torkild H. Lyngstad ◽  
Aleksi Karhula ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Grades ◽  
Sibling Correlations ◽  
Sibling Similarity ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling similarity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in education varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for theories about the impact of institutions and income inequality on educational inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.

Constraints in the Demand for Education: What Can we Learn from Subjective Assessments?

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga V. Sorokina
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Credit Constraints ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
Demand For Education ◽  
Subjective Assessments

Abstract While the large disparities in educational attainment by socioeconomic status in the United States point towards the importance of credit constraints, there is no consensus in the economic literature regarding their pervasiveness. To evaluate how subjective information can enhance our understanding of the role of credit constraints in education, I focus on NLSY79 respondents' assessments of financial obstacles to schooling. About 12 percent of young adults in the data expect to underinvest in education because of financial reasons or the need to work. Using this information in a regression model of educational attainment shows that it provides valuable behavioral insights, above and beyond standard measures of income and family background.

scholarly journals Educational Attainment and Nonwage Labor Market Returns in the United States

AERA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 233285841987405
Author(s):  
Lauren Schudde ◽  
Kaitlin Bernell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Market Returns ◽  
Labor Market Returns ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Impact

Although decades of research highlight the impact of schooling on earnings, less evidence exists regarding other employment outcomes. Nonwage labor market returns to education are important in the United States, where health insurance and retirement income are typically tied to employment. Using longitudinal, nationally representative data, we examine the role of educational attainment in predicting nonwage employment outcomes and control for a host of individual and institutional measures. Even after controlling for individual and institutional characteristics, results indicate that educational attainment predicts employment and markers of “good” jobs, like access to employer-provided health and dental insurances, retirement plans, and paid leave. Furthermore, by delineating between various subbaccalaureate levels of college attainment, our results illustrate the complex variation in returns to college for those who did not complete a 4-year degree.

The relationship between income inequality and inequality in schooling

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Mayer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Government Education ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Children of affluent parents get more schooling than children of poor parents, which seems to imply that reducing income inequality would reduce inequality in schooling. Similarly, one of the best predictors of an individual’s income is his educational attainment, which seems to imply that reducing inequality in schooling will reduce income inequality. Economic theory predicts that all else being equal an increase in income inequality will lead to an increase in inequality of educational attainment. Empirical estimates suggest that when income inequality increased in the United States so did inequality in educational attainment. But changes in government education policies reduced the impact of the increase in income inequality on inequality in schooling. Economic theory also predicts that all else being equal an increase in inequality of educational attainment will result in greater inequality of earnings. But unequal schooling does not account for much of the variance in income, so equalizing schooling will do little to reduce the overall variation in economic success among adults.

scholarly journals Reinforcing at the Top or Compensating at the Bottom? Family Background and Academic Performance in Germany, Norway, and the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-394
Author(s):  
Michael Grätz ◽  
Øyvind N Wiborg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
Socioeconomic Differences ◽  
National Differences ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Performance Distribution ◽  
Cross National

Abstract Research on educational mobility usually studies socioeconomic differences at the mean of children’s academic performance but fails to consider the variation in the shape of socioeconomic differences across the outcome distribution. Theories of social mobility as well as theories about the resource allocation within families predict such variation. We use quantile regression models to estimate variation in socioeconomic differences across the distribution of academic performance using different indicators of family background (parental education, occupation, earnings, and wealth). We apply this approach to data on Germany, Norway, and the United States, three countries that represent different welfare and education regimes that may affect the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage. We find stronger socioeconomic differences at the bottom than at the middle and the smallest differences at the top of the performance distribution. These findings are virtually identical across all four indicators of family background. We also find no cross-national differences in the shape of socioeconomic differences in academic performance.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MOTIVATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONALITY: CHINESE AND AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT PLANT ◽  
JEN REN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family History ◽  
Family Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Programs ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Entrepreneurial Intent ◽  
History Of ◽  
Preference Inventory ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, we compare the intentionality of students in graduate business programs in the United States and China toward becoming entrepreneurs. We utilize Amabile's Work Preference Inventory (WPI) to examine the motivational dimension of entrepreneurial intentionality and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to compare the impact of gender and family history of self-employment on employment intentionality. Our results suggest there is a positive relationship with entrepreneurial intent in both the intrinsic challenge characteristic and extrinsic compensation characteristic. Results also suggest the intrinsic enjoyment characteristic and extrinsic outward characteristic are negatively correlated to self-employment. In addition, the study found that males in China exhibited a significantly greater intentionality toward self-employment than females did. We also found that entrepreneurial intentionality is stronger in the U.S. study group than in the China group for those with prior self-employment experience, as well as when they have a background that includes a family history of self-employment. However, when there is no family background of self-employment, the Chinese show greater intentionality to become self-employed than the group located in the United States.

Labor Supply Decisions, Occupational Segregation, and Intergenerational Income Mobility – Germany and the United States Compared

2009 ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Veronika Eberharter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Supply ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Occupational Segregation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Background Characteristics ◽  
Intergenerational Income Mobility ◽  
The Impact

The article directs attention to the structuring effects of humancapital variables and family-background characteristics on labor supply decisions, occupational segregation, and intergenerational income mobility in the United States and Germany - two countries with different institutional labor market settings and family role patterns. The article tests the hypothesis that the impact of family-background characteristics on labor supply decisions, sex or gender segregation, and intergenerational transmission of social and economic status is more expressed in societies with traditional role patterns. Using data from the international version of the Cross-National Equivalent File (PSIDGSOEP), the results of the static labor supply model show that gender and education significantly determine the individual labor market participation in both the countries. Occupational gender segregation is more pronounced in Germany than in the United States. The contribution of the occupational groups to total gender segregation differs by country but not by marital status. We find stronger evidence for the impact of individual- and family-background characteristics on the intergenerational heritage of social status in the United States than in Germany.

scholarly journals Reinforcing at the Top or Compensating at the Bottom? Family Background and Academic Performance in Germany, Norway, and the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Grätz ◽  
Øyvind N. Wiborg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Origin ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Performance Distribution ◽  
Cross National

Research on educational mobility usually fails to consider variation in the association between social origin and academic performance across the distribution of children’s academic performance. However, theories of social mobility as well as theories about resource allocation within families predict such variation. We use quantile regression models to estimate variations in the associations between different indicators of family background (parental education, occupation, earnings, and wealth) and children’s educational performance across the performance distribution. We apply this approach to data on Germany, Norway, and the United States, three countries that represent different kinds of welfare and education regimes that may affect the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage. We find a stronger association between family background and academic performance at the bottom than in the middle and the weakest association at the top of the performance distribution. These findings are virtually identical across all four indicators of family background. We also find no cross-national differences in the variation of the association between family background and academic performance across the performance distribution.

scholarly journals Educational Attainment and Family Background

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arild Aakvik ◽  
Kjell Vaage ◽  
Kjell G. Salvanes
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Explanatory Variable ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Credit Constraints ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Short Term

Abstract This paper analyses the effect of aspects of family background, such as family income and parental education, on the educational attainment of persons born from 1967 to 1972. Family income is measured at different periods of a child’s life to separate long-term versus short-term effects of family income on educational choices.We find that permanent income matters to a certain degree, and that family income when the child is 0-6 years old is an important explanatory variable for educational attainment later in a child’s life. We find that short-term credit constraints have only a small effect on educational attainment. Long-term factors, such as permanent family income and parental education, are much more important for educational attainment than are short-term credit constraints. Public interventions to alleviate the effects of family background should thus also be targeted at a child’s early years, the shaping period for the cognitive and non-cognitive skills important later in life.

scholarly journals The pattern of educational inequality - The contribution of family background on levels of education over time and across four countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Outi Sirniö ◽  
Hannu Lehti ◽  
Michael Grätz ◽  
Kieron Barclay ◽  
Jani Erola
Keyword(s):  
Parental Education ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Total Contribution ◽  
Sibling Correlations ◽  
Total Influence ◽  
Sibling Similarity ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

This article analyses the pattern of inequality across levels of education and its evolution over time from a cross-national comparative perspective. We employ a previously disregarded approach of sibling correlations to measure how the contribution of the total family background differs across achieved levels of education. We compare successive birth cohorts in Finland, Sweden, Germany, and the U.S. between 1990 and 2015. We further analyze the extent to which the total contribution of parental background is accounted for by observed parental education. Our results indicate a pattern in which sibling similarity is strongest in the lowest and the highest levels of education in all studied countries. Changes over time were more pronounced in the Nordics and in educational levels other than the lowest. Observed parental education played a less notable role than expected, indicating that using only parental education ignores a substantial portion of the total influence of family background.

Affirmative Action and Education in Fiji: Legitimation, Contestation, and Colonial Discourse

2001 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen White
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Past Injustices ◽  
Lower Educational Attainment

In this article, Carmen M. White analyzes the debate about affirmative action policies in education in Fiji and explores the impact of colonial discourses on the debates. She asserts that, much like in the United States, affirmative action policies in Fiji have been intended to correct past injustices to minority and underprivileged groups. She shows how proponents of affirmative action use a colonial discourse that undercuts the power of their argument and yet paradoxically fails to acknowledge the historical roots of the lower educational attainment of the Fijian population. In considering similarities of debate on this issue between the United States and Fiji, White offers an additional perspective from which to understand the affirmative action debate. (pp. 240–268)

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