Countercyclical school attainment and intergenerational mobility

Abstract

We study how economic conditions at the time of choosing post-compulsory education affect intergenerational mobility. Exploiting local variation in birthplace unemployment rate at age 16 across 23 cohorts in France, we find that cohorts deciding on post-compulsory education in bad economic times are more educationally intergenerationally mobile-their level of educational attainment is less related to having a white-collar father. These cohorts are also more occupationally intergenerationally mobile; and a large fraction of this effect is explained by business cycle-induced differences in educational attainment. Results are robust to accounting for differential spatial mobility between birth and age 16 by parental occupation. Finally, we provide additional evidence that high local unemployment at age 16 increases the relative school enrollment rate of children of blue collar workers the year after-at age 17. 3

Make your own luck: The wage gains from starting college in a bad economy

“…This evidence is consistent withArenas and Malgouyres (2018), who find that experiencing economic downturns at the age of 16 induces children of blue-collar fathers to enroll into postcompulsory education more than children of white-collar fathers in France.…”

Make Your Own Luck: The Wage Gains from Starting College in a Bad Economy

“…we find that pre-university academic achievement indicators are similar or slightly worse for cohorts of graduates that enroll during worse economic conditions. 12 This evidence is consistent withArenas and Malgouyres (2018) , who find that experiencing economic downturns at the age of 16 induces children of bluecollar fathers to enroll into post-compulsory education more than children of white-collar fathers in France.…”

The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in Europe

“…In Sweden, the financial crises of 1990-1994 and 2007-2008 led to decreased upward absolute and relative income mobility in regions more heavily exposed (Nybom and Stuhler, 2021). At the same time, averse labor market conditions can trigger individuals to seek more education which may improve mobility (Arenas and Malgouyres, 2018). Local labor markets have also been found to impact fields of study, for example, through variation in skill demands (Kuhn, 2022) or sorting into low-risk occupations during economic downturns (Deneault, 2022).…”