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This study examines the links between parental education and students' choice of field of study in Norwegian higher education. In our interpretation of the results, we suggest a status group perspective that integrates risk aversion models, micro-class theory, and cultural reproduction schemes. Complete Norwegian register data for all individuals born from 1955 to 1980 allow for a fine-grained examination of diverse fields of study not attempted in earlier studies. The findings reveal that intergenerational reproduction of educational fields is widespread, but its extent varies across fields of study. The tendency is most pronounced among children of professional, educated parents with masters and higher-level degrees. Moreover, the analysis shows that students who do not choose the same field as their parents nonetheless tend to choose educational fields close to those of their parents.

The identification of unconditional quantile treatment effects (QTE) has become increasingly popular within social sciences. However, current methods to identify unconditional QTEs of continuous treatment variables are incomplete. Contrary to popular belief, the unconditional quantile regression model introduced by Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009) does not identify QTE, while the propensity score framework of Firpo (2007) allows for only a binary treatment variable, and the generalized quantile regression model of Powell (2020) is unfeasible with high-dimensional fixed effects. This paper introduces a two-step approach to estimate unconditional QTEs where the treatment variable is first regressed on the control variables followed by a quantile regression of the outcome on the residualized treatment variable. Unlike much of the literature on quantile regression, this two-step residualized quantile regression framework is easy to understand, computationally fast, and can include high-dimensional fixed effects.

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.

This study uses comparable Danish and Norwegian administrative registers in the period 1992 to 2003 to examine how social origin affects unemployment risks and social assistance reception over the early life course. Denmark and Norway have traditionally been viewed as similar in political, cultural and social aspects. However, labour market regulation in Denmark is more liberal than in Norway. This study therefore serves as a unique comparison of the impact of social origin under varying conditions of labour market regulation. Although the absolute probability of being disadvantaged decreases as individuals progress in age from 20 to 30 and varies between Denmark and Norway, the relative impact of social background is stable and similar. The results offer little support to theories that put a strong emphasis on inter-generational transmission through educational achievements, but rather point toward the importance of ascriptive resources. Generalised estimating equations are used to assess the repeated outcomes.