Does substance use play a role in gender differences in residential independence and returns to the parental home?

Young adults are co-residing with their parents at higher rates now than in the past, and recent research has explored the correlates of both leaving and subsequently returning to the parental home. Of relevance here, females tend to leave home earlier than their male counterparts, and research finds that drinking and drug use are also linked to residential transitions. This research note explores if substance use during adolescence and young adulthood plays a role in gender differences in home-leaving and home-returning. We find that marijuana use plays a role in both home-leaving and home-returning, with adolescent females who use marijuana the most at risk for early exits from home, and marijuana using males the most at risk for home-returning.

Tracking in Israeli high schools: social inequality after 50 years of educational reforms

This paper provides an overview of tracking in Israeli upper secondary education and assesses its effect on the attainment of higher education degrees and earnings. Since the early 1970’s, the Israeli education system has gone through three major reforms that profoundly transformed tracking and sorting mechanisms in secondary education. All three aimed at reducing social inequality in educational attainment through structural changes that expanded learning opportunities and replaced rigid top-down sorting mechanisms with concepts of differentiation and choice. Utilising a data set that includes a large representative sample of Israelis born between 1978 and 1981 who were fully affected by the reforms, the analysis shows that there is a clear link between social background and track placement. Track placement, in turn, is associated with attainment of higher education degrees and income. Moreover, tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between parental class and these two adult outcomes. We also show that the low-status academic tracks that replaced the vocational tracks did not improve the life chances of low-achieving students from disadvantaged social groups.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>We analyze the relation between social background, secondary education tracking and later life achievements using registry data.</li><br /><li>The results show that tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between background and outcomes High-tier vocational tracks improved the chances of students.</li><br /><li>Low-status academic tracks did not improve the life chances of low background students.</li></ul>

How do grandparents’ and parents’ educational attainments influence parents’ educational expectations for children?

Highly educated parents hold high educational expectations for their children, which influence children’s motivation and achievement in school. However, it is unclear whether grandparents’ (G1) education influences parents’ (G2) expectations for children (G3) independently of, or in interaction with, parents’ own education. We address this question using data from 477 families in the US Youth Development Study, which has followed a cohort of young people from adolescence through adulthood. Using mixed models to account for shared characteristics of children in the same family, our results demonstrate both main and interaction effects. First, they indicate that grandparents influence parents’ expectations for their children directly. Grandparents’ income and the educational expectations they held for their G2 children when they were in high school predict the G2 parents’ expectations for their own children, even after controlling G2 college attendance. G1 college attendance does not directly affect G2 expectations for G3 after accounting for other relevant family characteristics. However, G1 college attendance moderates the effect of G2 college attendance on their expectations for G3. If G1 did not attend college, G2 college attendance does not significantly heighten their expectations for G3. But G2 college attendance does significantly boost their expectations for G3 if G1 also attended college. We partially replicate these findings using nationally representative data from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – Child and Young Adult cohort. This study highlights the need to expand the scope of status attainment research beyond the parent–child dyad to examine the influence of prior generations.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>This study considers how grandparents influence parents’ educational expectations for their children.</li><br /><li>Grandparents’ expectations for parents’ education (when they were adolescents) are positively related to parents’ expectations for their own children.</li><br /><li>The effect of parents’ education on expectations for children depends on grandparents’ education.</li><br /><li>The two-generation model of status attainment should be expanded to consider three or more generations.</li></ul>

Social origins, tracking and occupational attainment in Italy

Students and parents choose among high school tracks based on the assumption that academic tracks will offer a better preparation for university while vocational tracks will make the transition in the labour market easier, if students do not have a tertiary degree. We assess whether this assumption holds also when considering the long-term occupational outcomes of tracks choices in upper secondary education, controlling for both social and ability selection into tracks. We use for this purpose recent data from the 2014 ISFOL PLUS survey and apply linear regression/probability models to investigate labour market outcomes in a stage of occupational maturity. We find that, while there are no significant differences between tracks in the likelihood of being employed, students with an academic diploma fare better than vocational students in terms of social class attainment, even in the absence of a tertiary degree. The advantage of the academic diploma holds both for entering the salariat class and the high salariat class, and for avoiding demotion into manual occupations or unskilled manual occupations. We also show that tracking accounts for a large proportion of the total effects of socio-economic background on occupational attainment, and that coming from socio-economically advantaged families exacerbates the labour market advantages of attending an academic track.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>The link between social background, high school track and long-term occupational outcomes is analysed.</li><br /><li>Analyses control for social and ability selection into tracks.</li><br /><li>There are no significant differences between tracks in employment status at occupational maturity in Italy.</li><br /><li>Academic diploma holders have higher chances of entering the upper classes and lower risks of ending into manual occupations.</li></ul>