Inequality of educational opportunity in Germany: a relative

Inequality of educational opportunity in Germany:
a relative perspective
Liliya Leopold*
Extended abstract
Declining inequality of educational opportunity (IEO) especially at the primary and secondary
educational levels coupled with more persistent inequality in tertiary education has been recently found
in Germany and other countries (Breen et al 2009, Breen et al 2010, Mayer et al 2007, Reimer and Pollak
2010). These results suggest that except for the highest educational degrees, educational achievement
has become less dependent on social origin across cohorts.
This conclusion might, however, be questioned, mainly because these studies focused on the association
between formal educational credentials, thus, operationalizing education in absolute terms. Such
approach implicitly disregards possible change of relative value of particular degrees for achieving
particular social position. As a result, children might have achieved higher formal educational degrees
than their parents, but the relative value of these degrees might have changed. Accounting solely for
absolute or formal education, thus, may lead to misestimating of inequality of relative educational
opportunity. In other words, even though the generation of children is more educated, their educational
degrees might not endow them with similar life chances or at least labor market chances compared to
the generation of their parents.
The extent of modification of educational value has been shown to vary across countries dependent
mainly on the extent of educational expansion and coordination of the labor markets (Bol 2013). In
general the value of educational credentials in labor markets is related to their scarcity. In means that
certain degrees may reduce their value the more graduates are holding similar certificates and the fewer
jobs requiring this educational level are available (Clogg and Shockey 1984; Hirsh 1979, Freeman
1974). Thus, in many countries educational expansion was shown to devaluate educational degrees in
terms if income and occupational status (Bol 2013). One can imagine a scale with two extremes with
societies characterized by great educational expansion coupled with uncoordinated labor markets on one
end and with societies with moderate educational expansion and strongly regulated labor market on the
opposite end. While the United States are traditionally placed on the first end, Germany is used as an
illustration for the later end.
The aim of this study is, thus, to examine whether in a context with high stability of educational value,
the relative perspective would confirm conclusions of previous research.
Data & operationalization
NEPS
I analyze data on adults collected 2009 and 2010 by the German National Educational Panel Study
(NEPS), particularly the data from starting cohort 6 (SC6). For respondents aged between 23 and 64 this
data provides necessary detailed information on respondents’ and their parents’ educational
achievement, employment, and family context (Leopold et al 2011).
The initial dataset included 11, 572 respondents born between 1944 and 1986. For the purposes of my
analyses I made however several restrictions. I selected only non-immigrant respondents and only those
born in Western Germany, as well as those who graduated between 1971 and 2005. After all sample
restrictions, my data includes 5,278.
Absolute and relative measures of education
To measure education in absolute terms I follow most previous studies on change of IEO in Germany,
and use information on educational degrees as quantified by CASMIN classification (Müller et al 2002).
There is, however, no such established way of quantifying relative education. Several scholars (e.g.,
Sørensen 1979, Olneck and Kim 1989, most recently Bol and van de Werfhorst 2011) provided some
ideas.
Following these scholars, I first transform education into cohort specific quartiles. Even though from
international comparative perspective Germany is considered as a typical example of a country with
rather marginal educational expansion, substantial changes in the proportion of those holding higher
educational degrees are observable in both generations. For example, more than 75% parents of those
respondents who graduated during the 70s hold lowest secondary degree, while among parents of those
who graduated in the 90s top 25% of educational distribution consisted however from only three top
educational categories. Among respondents we also observe a clear trend: top quintile among those who
graduated during the 70s consists of three educational categories, among those who graduated during
the 80s it consists of two tertiary levels and in the final graduation cohort top 25% of educational
distribution belong to the university degree. The first dependent variable identifies, thus, whether the
degree is among top 25% in respondent’s graduation cohort.
This measure of relative education assumes that the more people hold similar, especially higher, degrees
within a cohort, the fewer rewards they are likely to receive. This is however a rather strong assumption
since educational value depends substantially not only how many people within your cohort hold the
same degree, but to a similar extent also on the occupational structure. If there are enough positions
which require expanding educational levels, the value of their education can be not expected to change.
Relative education as measured by proportion within a cohort, thus, does not automatically reflect the
actual changes of the value of education.
2
In order to account for such value, I analyze whether average socioeconomic status of respondents’ and
parental occupations within educational degrees has declined as these degrees expanded. To account for
age differences in parental generation I use the measure of status of the father as respondent was 15
years old. To consider age differences among respondents I use the measure of occupational status of
the first job after completing their final degrees. Occupational status is measured by International SocioEconomic Index (ISEI) - the standard metric scale developed by Treiman and Ganzeboom (Ganzeboom
et al 1992, Ganzeboom & Treiman 2003).
The change of average ISEI across cohorts is marginal but still present, especially among respondents.
To capture this change I, thus recode nominal CASMIN educational categories in to average ISEI by
graduation cohorts. This variable, thus accounts not only for changes in the educational distribution but
also for the change of the value of education in terms of ISEI in both parental and respondents’
generations.
Results and preliminary conclusion
I estimated logit regression models in which I defined education in both absolute (CASMIN) and relative
(quintiles) terms. I also estimated OLS regression models in which education is recoded into its average
value in terms of occupational status (ISEI). First preliminary results show that main conclusions of
previous studies which operationalized education in absolute terms apply also to inequality of
educational opportunity in relative terms in Germany. In both cases I found a slight overall decline of
the effect of parental education across graduation cohorts on educational levels of their children. With
regards to tertiary levels or to top 25% of educational distribution within a cohort respectively,
persistence or even a slight increase of the effect of parental education is observed, consistently with
previous studies.
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