Does Increasing the Minimum School-Leaving Age Affect the Intergenerational Transmission of Education? Evidence from Four European Countries

Bibliographic Data

ID7772184
AuthorsMichael Grätz (0000-0001-7920-1021, Institut des Sciences Sociales, University of Lausanne , 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume38
Issue4
Pages543-559
Publication date2022-07-23
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcab065
PMID35913897
OpenAlexW4200133432
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited40

Reforms in the minimum school-leaving age are candidates for policies that affect the intergenerational transmission of education. I propose that the societal contexts in which these reforms occur may moderate their effects on educational mobility. To test this hypothesis, I estimate the cross-country variation in the effects of increases in the minimum school-leaving age on educational mobility in four European countries. I employ a regression discontinuity design and data from the European Social Survey and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe on Austria, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands. The findings provide no evidence to the hypothesis that the reforms in the minimum school-leaving age changed the association between the education of parents and the education of their children in any of the four countries. These findings are robust to measuring educational attainment in a multitude of ways, and they do not vary between men and women. The results are at odds with rational choice theories that expect reforms in the minimum school-leaving age to increase educational mobility

Affect (linguistics) · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Sociology · Telecommunications · Transmission (telecommunications) · Computer Science · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · School Choice and Performance · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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