Educational Inequality

Abstract

This chapter provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

Like Mother, Like Child? The Rise of Women's Intergenerational Income Persistence in Sweden and the United States

“…cohorts born 1952-75 (e.g., Hertz, 2007Lee and Solon, 2009) or later (Chetty et al, 2014), a finding that is surprising given the concurrent increase in income inequality, the theoretical link between inequality and mobility, and the observation that gaps in parental inputs have increased (Blanden, Doepke and Stuhler, 2022). However, Davis and Mazumder (2022) find that mobility declined sharply for cohorts born 1957-64, in comparison with those born 1942-53, and Justman and Stiassnie (2021 find declining mobility when extending the time frame considered by Hertz (2007) and Lee and Solon (2009) to more recent years.…”