Institutional Change and Parental Compensation in Intergenerational Attainment

Abstract

Previous research has shown how institutional changes, such as educational expansion,<br>have weakened parental influence on educational attainment. We extend this<br>analysis to occupational attainment and put forth a parental compensation hypothesis:<br>as the origin-education (OE) association weakens, parents act to compensate<br>for this in order to maintain their influence on the child’s occupational attainment.<br>We should see this as a strengthened origin-destination association net of education<br>(net OD). Further, we study whether these compensatory actions are triggered by<br>changes in educational institutions and whether the institutional changes that<br>reduce educational inequality are the same ones that prompt parental compensation.<br>We have linked data from five waves of the European Social Survey (2002–<br>10) with data on educational institutions matched to birth cohorts born 1941–80 in<br>25 countries. We find weakened OE and strengthened net OD associations, supporting<br>our parental compensation hypothesis. Multilevel mixed effects regression<br>analyses reveal that reforms lengthening compulsory education, and the increased<br>access to and the attainment of higher education have had a positive influence on<br>parental compensation. As a conclusion, a later school leaving age seems to secure<br>increased parental influence on children’s occupational attainment, while parents<br>seem to have reacted to a lesser extent on the changes in higher education.<br>